722 Preventing " Bunt " in Wheat. [Nov., 





Co-op. Mills. 



Other Mills. 



Total. 





tons. 



tons. 



tons. 



1910/11 



244,000 



305,000 



549,000 



1911/12 



228,750 



137,250 



366,000 



1912/13 



405,650 



426,085 



831,735 



1919/20 



523,075 



78,385 



601,460 



1920/21 



508,740 



55,815 



564,555 



1921/22 



329,095 



14,333 



343,430 



The average production of flour 



is estimated 



at 380 lb. per ton 



of potatoes delivered at the flour mill. In normal years about 

 25,000 tons of flour are used in the Netherlands, the balance 

 being exported. 



jit A? & 



*T» T- 7Jv vj\ 1^ 



A SAFE METHOD OF PREVENTING 

 "BUNT 55 IN WHEAT. 



E. S. Salmon and H. Wormald, 

 Mycological Department, South- Eastern Agricultural College, 



Wye, Kent. 



There is perhaps none of the common fungus diseases of farm 

 crops that more urgently needs attention at the present time than 

 " Bunt," or " Stinking Smut," of Wheat.* In the years since 

 the War, complaints of its increasing prevalence have been 

 made from all parts of England. Professor E. H. Biffen, 

 referring more especially to the wheat lands in the Eastern 

 Counties, has written: f" Bunted wheat is far commoner than 

 it should be. In part this is due to the fact that a good deal of 

 the grain sold for seed purposes is infected. Buyers should be 

 more on their guard, and if a single * bunted ' grain can be 

 detected in a seed sample, that should be a sufficient reason for 

 rejecting it. The reason for this apparently drastic course is 

 that many vendors are too prone to assume that wheat can be 

 adequately cleaned by the simple process of blowing out such 

 grains. But whilst it is true that the spore-filled grains 

 (bunt) can be removed in this manner, no wind current will dis- 

 pose of the myriads of spores which inevitably find their way 

 into the grooves of the grains or the brushes of hairs at their 

 tips during the threshing of the crop." 



Losses. — In a recent number of this Journalt outbreaks of 

 bunt were recorded in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Cambridge- 



* An illustrated Leaflet (No. 92) on Bunt, giving the full life-history, can 

 be obtained post-free on application to the Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture 

 and Fisheries, 10, Whitehall Place, London, S.W. 1. 



f Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc. of England, 81, p. 244 (1920). 



J Vol. XXVIII, 1921, p. 730. ' 



