


NEW OAT SMUTS 
A SERIOUS PROBLEM 
By GEORGE J. WILDS 
President 
¢ 
Discovery of New Races Which Affect Many Standard 
Smut Resistant Varieties Complicate Breeders’ Problems 
and Make Ceresan Treatment of All Oat Varieties 
Advisable Regardless of Previous Record of Smut 
Resistance, 
Breeding for smut resistance is a most vexing, 
complex, and hazardous undertaking. A variety may 
be resistant to all known races, then along comes 
a new race that infects it as badly as if it had not 
been bred for smut resistance. While we are cross- 
ing and breeding for smut resistance, the smuts are 
doing likewise in an apparent effort to tear down 
that which we have so laboriously and painstakingly 
built up. 
Our Fulgrain Strains 1, 2 and 8 were highly 
resistant to all known races of smut in the United 
States. Tests were made at seventeen widely scat- 
tered Experiment Stations, sixteen of these in the 
United States and one in Canada. Each experimenter 
used the race or races that were prevalent in his 
section, and only in Madison, Wisconsin, was there 
any infection, and that less than six percent. 
Fulgrain Smut Discovered 
In 1938 smut appeared in a Fulgrain field near 
Leesville, South Carolina. It was reported by Mr. 
Harold Epting. We investigated and found that it 
was pure Fulgrain and smutting badly. We collected 
a large amount of this smut, and since that time, 
have been planting three separate smut inoculation 
tests, in one using the Fulghum race, in another 
Red Rust Proof or Appler, and in the third using 
the Fulgrain race. We found all Fulgrain strains 
prior to Strain 4 highly susceptible to this Fulgrain 
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