ERGOT

[mister]

Here in the Melfort area I found Ergot in my hard red wheat. I'm very disapointed it has taken my beautiful crop of 60 bush/acre down to feed quality when it would be #1 with 14.6protien if it didn't have Ergot. What can I do for next year?

[mhartman]

Ergot is a disease of grasses. Our cereal crops are susceptible in the following order from most to least: rye, triticale, durum, wheat, barley and oats. Grain with more than 0.1 percent ergot is dangerous to feed to livestock, especially pregnant or lactating cows. Ergot overwinters in the soil as the ergot body. The ergot germinates in the spring and produces small mushrooms. The mushrooms produce spores which infect open grain florets and immature seeds. The disease can be spread further by rain and insects. We really have only cultural control methods for ergot. Mowing grass headlands before they flower will help prevent ergot from spreading to your crop. Rotation helps. Wheat should not follow rye. Break cereal crops with a broadleaf crop like canola. If a cereal crop was badly infected with ergot, it can help to disc or cultivate deeply to bury the ergots more than 2 inches. Always use seed clean of ergot. We have no resistant varieties or chemical controls. In some cases where soils are copper deficient, ergot can be reduced by copper fertilization.