694 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
VdL. XXIV. No. 8 
OCCURRENC]^ ON WH^AT AND RYl® 
Helminthosporium disease of wheat affecting seedlings as well as 
older plants was reported, according to the files of the Plant-Disease 
Survey, as doing considerable damage in several seasons during the past 
decades, especially in North Dakota and Minnesota. In the former 
State, Bolley {14) found one or more species of Helminthosporium 
responsible in large measure for the deterioration of wheat production. 
Isolations made from various parts of diseased wheat plants revealed the 
presence, in addition to representatives of the genera Altemaria, Colle- 
totrichum, Fusarium, and Macrosporium, of strains of Helminthosporium 
in the nodes and intemodes of the stem, as well as on the surface and in 
the interior of the kernels (15). Of special interest is the account given 
by the same author of a type of infection designated as “brown spot'’ 
and manifested by brown discoloration of the lower portion of the wheat 
stems near the soil line. Such attack was found to occasion reduction 
in tillering, as affected stools usually consisted of only one, or more 
frequently, two tillers, the other tillers being represented by abortive 
shoots or intercepted buds. Beckwith's (10) study of the occurrence of 
soil fungi in North Dakota showed that strains of Helminthosporium 
were found occurring considerably more abundantly on the nodes and 
intemodes of wheat in the wet season of 1909 than in the dry season of 
1910. 
Later, E. C. Johnson (71) published the results of experiments on 
certain cereals with a fungus he designated as Helminthosporium gra- 
mineum Rabh. Inoculation of young seedlings of wheat, barley, oats, 
and rye with spores from pure cultures originaUy isolated from the lower 
parts of the culms of wheat, as well as from wheat leaves and barley 
leaves, resulted in the prompt appearances of leaf spot on all the four 
graminaceous species. When wheat seeds inoculated with spores were 
sown, their germination was considerably reduced, and the resulting 
plants were stunted in comparison with uninoculated controls. Indeed, 
some of the inoculated seeds were attacked so promptly that they had 
no opportunity to germinate; in other cases, the young plants were killed 
before they were an inch high. The attack on the surviving seedlings 
was manifested by a brown discoloration at the base of the culms, usually 
occurring in the basal leaf sheath, and subsequently extending to the 
root crown, as well as by the partial brownish discoloration and reduced 
development of the root system. Barley and oat seed similarly treated 
were not perceptibly reduced in viability, although the resulting barley 
seedlings were somewhat retarded in growth and exhibited in smaller 
degree the same type of discoloration as the diseased wheat seedlings. 
In spite of E. C. Johnson's statement that the strain of Helmintho¬ 
sporium discussed in his paper corresponded in cultural and morpho¬ 
logical characteristics to the descriptions of Ravn (115), there are strong 
reasons for suspecting that his fungus was not identical with the parasite 
causing barley stripe. The latter, in the writer’s experience, can not 
be made to sporulate in pure culture except in meager quantity, any 
profuse sporulation, such as was presumably induced in all the imperfect 
fungi employed by E. C. Johnson, certainly never having been observed 
in H, gramineum. Moreover, the pathological lesions produced in his 
experimental plants obviously bore little resemblance to those of the 
systemic trouble described by Ravn. On the other hand, the symptoms 
