Circular No. 59 - Control of Stinking Smut of Wheat with Copper Carbonate

Stinking smut or bunt of wheat is an ever-present and destructive disease in the wheat fields of Utah. During the past season (1925) this disease was especially prevalent, causing losses in certain fields of from 25 to 50 per cent, not counting the loss to the grower in reduced grade of grain. In the threshing of smutty wheat there is also the risk of loss from smut explosion. Almost every season cases of this sort are reported. In addition of all of the wheat tested by the U. S. Grain Inspector at Logan for Northern Utah and Southern Idaho 30 per cent showed smut infection in 1925. The average reduction for smut is near ten cents a bushel with a variation from five to twenty cents. The cost of producing a smutted crop may equal or even exceed the cost of producing a clean crop. Loss occurring from this disease, since it is preventable, can hardly be considered attached to the total gross returns; it is a subtraction from the net profit. Effective methods for the prevention of these losses by smut are now available to every grain grower