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Oat Smut in Indiana. 



F. J. PlPAL. 



In the winter of 1914, the writer, representing the Botanical Depart- 

 ment of the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, conducted, in co- 

 operation with the Extension Department of Purdue University and the 

 county agricultural agents, a series of meetings at which demonstrations 

 were given of the formaldehyde treatment of seed oats and potatoes. The 

 meetings were held in Benton, Lake, Porter, Jasper, Pulaski, Laporte, Elk- 

 hart, Grant, Madison, Randolph, Clinton and Montgomery counties, which 

 are among the largest oat-growing counties in the State. According to 

 the report of the last census these twelve counties raised over thirty-two 

 per cent., in acreage, of the entire oat crop of the State. It may be of 

 interest, therefore, to report some facts resulting from these meetings, 

 since they furnish fairly reliable data as to the oat smut situation through- 

 out the State. 



A most striking thing has come to light in connection with this cam- 

 paign. It has been learned that out of 3,168 persons reached through the 

 meetings less than a dozen farmers previous to that time had ever used 

 the formaldehyde treatment for their seed oats. The use of formaldehyde 

 as a general disinfectant and a specific fungicide for potato scab was 

 originated, about eighteen years ago, in the Botanical Department of the 

 Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, by Dr. J. G. Arthur. It was 

 then applied as a disinfectant for oat smut and the stinking smut of wheat 

 by Professor H. L. Bolley, formerly assistant to Dr. Arthur. It remains to 

 the present date the simplest, cheapest and most effective seed grain dis- 

 infectant in use. A large majority of the farmers of the State, however, 

 evidently have not, for some reason, taken advantage of this discovery, and 

 still allow the smut disease to reduce the oat yield by several million 

 bushels every year. 



One of the reasons for this neglect evidently is the fact that most 

 farmers do not fully realize the extent to which the oat smut occurs in 

 their crops. About thirty years ago, Dr. Arthur, then a botanist for the 



