Ergot wheat for seed

[kfournier]

I was wondering if anybody knew how effective vitavax or an equiviant treatment was to treat ergot in seed wheat. I had one field that had enough ergot to downgrade it and was thinking I could use it for seed if there was no risk of making a worse problem for next year. I understand that the seed cleaning plants can remove most of it but it would be great if I could be insured that the rest of the ergot bodies would be killed by a chemical treatment. Any hope?

[mhartman]

There is no seed treatment for ergot. If ergot infested seed can be cleaned to be low levels (less than 3 ergots in a pound of clean seed), then it could be used if necessary. Seed the wheat deeper than 2 inches since the ergots cannot sprout longer than that. If at all possible though, consider buying some clean wheat. Holding ergot infested wheat seed for 2 to 3 years will also greatly reduce the number of viable ergot bodies.