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This discovery would have left us in a serious 
predicament had not Dr. Reed come to our aid. 
Immediately on finding the prevalence of this smut 
in Victorgrain, we collected inoculum and forwarded 
to him dehulled seed of all our oat strains, with 
the request that he make an outdoor planting using 
the inoculum that we had forwarded in one test, 
and a duplicate test using Avena-30. He kindly 
consented to do this, and in the meantime, we will 
save all promising strains and await his report on 
these tests before final selections are made. Those 
strains will be favored that show uniformly high 
resistance. 
Ceresan Treatment Essential Regardless of 
Previous Record of Smut Resistance 
We will continue to breed for resistance to all 
races of smut in our usual thorough manner but in 
light of these recent discoveries, we feel that, 
regardless of past history and experience, it is too 
hazardous to use planting seed, regardless of variety, 
without first treating for smut control. Conse- 
quently, we are going to treat all planting seed offered 
this year with Ceresan. This includes Victorgrain 
Strain 3, Fulgrain Strain 6 and Stanton Strain 1, 
even though Fulgrain Strain 6 has shown no sus- 
ceptibility to any race and no smut infected plants 
have so far been found in any of our Stanton increase 
fields. We want to urge that our friends and cus- 
tomers do likewise, and so advise this necessary 
precaution to all growers or sellers of oats to be 
used for planting purposes. The benefits derived 
from Ceresan treatment, other than smut control, 
far exceed the small cost. 
Victorgrain Smut Loss This Year Negligible 
We wanted to advise our customers promptly of 
this new race. While all possible loss from smut in 
Victorgrain this year is negligible, if the seed grown 
from this crop were planted this next year without 
first treating for smut control, the loss might be 
serious—and this so unnecessary and easily averted. 
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