1905.J Blindness in Barley and Oats. 349 



It is highly probable that these fungi grow on several kinds 

 of wild grass, and from thence may pass to cultivated oats and 

 barley. This suggests the clearing away of all grasses from 

 headlands and hedge banks. 



The ear is not usually attacked, as it rarely escapes from the 

 leaf-sheath, and there is no germ of the fungus in the grain, 

 although spores of the fungus may adhere to the grain and 

 thus be transported from place to place along with the latter. 

 If the grain is sprinkled with 1 per cent, of formalin in water, 

 and thoroughly mixed so that all the grain comes in contact 

 with the solution, spores of Helminthosporium and of " smut " 

 will be destroyed. 



The Board have also been furnished with the following note 

 on the same subject by Professor Percival, of University 

 College, Reading : — 



Since 1897 attention has been drawn to a diease of the barley 

 crop which is becoming more prevalent every year in this country. 



The plants which are attacked are very much checked in 

 their growth, barely reaching more than about half their 

 normal height. In bad cases the crop dries up without pro- 

 ducing more than a small percentage of well developed ears. 



The ears of some plants never escape from the leaf sheath 

 at all, while others make the attempt but are not able to 

 do so completely, the tip of the ear remaining entangled in 

 the sheath. Even when the ears grow out, many of them die 

 prematurely, and remain erect instead of becoming " sickled " 

 as in the healthy, well ripened crop. The brown, dead up- 

 standing ears present an abnormal appearance which farmers at 

 once recognise as something wrong. 



In the earliest stages of the disease yellow elongated stripes 

 or patches are met with on the leaves. Later, the stripes 

 increase in size and number, turning thin and pale, and 

 presently become margined by a characteristic reddish-brown 

 rim. The plants finally die, the leaf blades often becoming 

 slit into shreds. So far as the observations made up to the 

 present go, about 20 per cent, of the crop, in bad cases, pro- 

 duces no grain, and the disease does not appear to spread 

 among the rest of the crop, though seed saved from it, without 

 a doubt, gives rise to diseased plants in the following year, just 

 as is the case with smut and bunt. 



