COTTON - WII/T, A SEED-BORNE DISEASE 1 
By John A. Elliott 2 
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station 
INTRODUCTION 
The possibility that cotton-wilt is spread by means of infected seed 
has been recognized for many years, but in the previously reported 
experiments conducted for the purpose of determining whether or not 
the disease was seed borne negative results were secured. Fulton 3 dis¬ 
cussed the possibility of the disease being carried to new localities on 
seed but reported that— 
The writer has made numerous attempts to secure cultures of the wilt fungus from 
seed taken from badly wilted plants but without success. 
Gilbert 4 later attempted to introduce the wilt into uninfected soil by 
means of seed obtained from wilted plants. Apparent negative results 
were obtained in a test covering four successive years on the same piece 
of ground. 
While working with some of the other cotton diseases in Arkansas, 
the writer was struck by the not infrequent occurrence of isolated wilted 
plants in otherwise healthy fields, and often on practically virgin land. 
It was often suggested by the farmers that the disease was introduced 
in the seed. The possibility of the disease being seed-borne is very 
evident to one familiar with the disease and the methods of cotton 
planting. As with most wilt diseases, plants die throughout the season 
and some live through to frost. The most severely attacked plants, or 
those infected earliest, die without producing mature bolls. Many 
wilted plants, however, produce mature bolls before dying. Usually the 
plant dies, leaving many bolls in various stages of maturity, some of 
which open or partly open during the picking season. During a period 
of wet weather the wilt fungus grows out to the surface of the dead 
terminal twigs of the diseased plants and often covers the surface with a 
coating of spores. Under such conditions it is hard to conceive how 
any of the “seed cotton” from a badly wilt-infected field could escape 
carrying the spores of the fungus on the lint. 
In the spring of 1920 over 200 bushels of cotton seed were delinted by 
the concentrated sulphuric-acid method and further disinfected by soak¬ 
ing in 1 to 1,000 corrosive sublimate solution. Most of this seed was 
planted on virgin timber-land slash in Mississippi County, Ark., at a con¬ 
siderable distance from other cotton land. In this field of nearly 200 
acres occasional wilt-infected plants appeared throughout the season. 
No satisfactory explanation of their occurrence other than that the 
1 Accepted for publication July n, 1922. 
*.The writer acknowledges the assistance of Mr. R. F. Crawford in carrying on the isolation and inocu¬ 
lation experiments. 
* Fui,ton, H. R. cotton wn.T. La. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 96, 15 p., illus. 1907. 
4 Gilbert, W. W. cotton diseases and their control. U. S. Dept. Agr. Farmers* Bui. 1187, 32 p., 
18 fig. x9*x. 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
ace 
Vol. XXIII, No. 5 
Feb. 3. 1923 
Key No. Ark.-s 
25621-23 - 7 
(387) 
