Smut

Read about Smut in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Smut. Diseases of many cultivated cereal grasses and other plants caused by the attacks of fungi of the order Ustilaginales. The mycelium sometimes produces swellings on various parts of the host (or attacked plant), the swellings being eventually filled with brownish or blackish spores known as chlamydospores, which emerge, as a fine dust-like powder, when the outer membrane of the tissues bursts or cracks. The chlamydospores produce upon germination a structure known as a promycelium (basidium) which gives rise to lateral or terminal sporidia (basidiospores). The smut on Indian corn may be taken as typic. The disease usually appears first on the leaves, afterward at the junction of leaf-sheath and blade; finally the ear of corn is attacked, and the tassel. On the leaves blisters are found; on the ear, large whitish polished swellings appear. As the spores mature, the swellings become darker in color, and the inclosing membrane finally ruptures, exposing the dark olive-green mass of spores which are 8 to 12 µ (Greek micron) and are beset with fine spines. Unlike most other cereals, maize can be inoculated at any age. Several smuts have been described, viz., loose smut of oats (Ustilago avenae), maize and teosinte smut (Ustilago zeae), loose smut of wheat (Ustilago tritici), smut of blue-stem grass (Sorosporium syntherismae), rye smut (Urocystis occulta), onion smut (Urocystis cepulae), and colchicum smut (Urocystis colchici). For the loose smut of oats and wheat, the treatment of the seeds with hot water before planting is efficacious. The corn smut is best controlled by destroying the affected plants before the spores mature. The onion smut is due to infected soil which may be treated with sulfur, or formalin. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

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