BRICEER ARTICLES 
ERGOT ON OATS 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
While harvesting the grain in the oat-breeding nursery conducted 
by the Office of Grain Investigations of the Department of Agriculture, 
: in cooperation with the 
Iowa Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station, at Ames, 
Iowa, in July, 1909, 4 
ergot (Claviceps purpurea) 
on oats were found. Ergot 
on oats is said to be quite 
common in Algeria, and 
probably occurs elsewhere, 
but a partial review of the 
literature does not show. 
that it has been previously 
reported from the United 
States. The ergot masses 
which were found at Ames 
were in all cases near the 
base of the panicle, as 
shown in the accompany- 
ing illustration, and usu- 
ally only one of the spike- 
lets was affected. The dis- 
ease was most common on 
the Burt oat, a variety 
which, strangely enough, is 
entirely resistant to smut. 
Fic. 1 The season of rg09 Was 
a particularly wet one, 4 
condition generally recognized as favorable to ergot epidemics. No 
occurrence of the disease was noted at Ames in the dry season of 1910. 
Specimens of ergot collected at Ames in 1909 are in the herbarium of 
the Iowa State College and in the pathological collection of the Bureau 
of Plant Industry, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture—C. W. WARBURTON, 
Bureau of Plant Industry,-U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. 
Botanical Gazette, vol. 51] (64 
