The Harvester World: Volume 7, number 11, November 1916

              Agricultural Extension Department

But One Chance to Win in Wheat Farming

By Edgar W. Cooley, Agricultural Extension Department
THE government report, issued October 9, says, regarding the 1916 wheat crop in the United States: "Spring wheat estimate was cut 3,500,000 bush¬ els from the September figures, the preliminary final figures showing a yield of 152,851,000 bushels. This crop is 204,000,000 bushels less than was raised in 1915. The report reflects the nearest to a total crop failure in wheat the Northwest has ever known."
According to J. C. F. Merrill, secretary of the Chi¬ cago Board of Trade, the hard spring wheat situation is the worst ever known. The above figures do not show the entire loss in the wheat crop. A special report received by Secretary Merrill from the Department of Agriculture states that the figures quoted in the govern¬ ment report are on the basis of 60 pounds of wheat to the bushel whereas the average weight of a bushel of spring wheat throughout the United States this year is but 51.4 pounds.   Last year it was 57.5 pounds.
In Minnesota the average weight is 49.3 pounds, com¬ pared with 56.8 last year. In North Dakota it is 46.6, against 57 last year. In South Dakota it is 45.8 com¬ pared with 56.8 last year. In .Washington and Oregon the weight is above the average for the country, being 59.1 in Washington and 59.8 in Oregon. Reliable reports estimate a shrinkage of 46 percent in the yield of the wheat crop in Canada, compared with the 1915 yield. Estimates place the value of the wheat crop in Minnesota, North and South Dakota at only $96,000,000. The average yearly valuation from 1910 to 1914 was $170,000,000.
Most of this enormous loss by the United States and Canada was caused by what is commonly known as the black stem rust in wheat. It is a heavy price to pay for experience but the experience should be valuable.
The man who farms by the one-crop system is wager¬ ing his season's labor that nature will be kind to him. He is betting that conditions for the growth of that particular crop—conditions which he cannot possibly regulate—will be satisfactory.
If his one crop is spring wheat, he is gambling abso¬ lutely upon the weather—and he stands to lose, what¬ ever the weather may be.
If a drought comes or if the hot winds blow at a cer¬ tain time, he will escape a rust epidemic but must face the danger of injury to his crop by reason of the high temperature. If there is excessive moisture or the season is abnormally cool, great loss from rust is almost certain. If there is just the right amount of sunshine and just the right
Estimated Shrinkage in the 1916 Wheat Crop as
Compared to the 1915 Crop—Due Largely
to the Ravages of Red Rust
Canada
Minnesota           ) N. & S. Dakota \ The whole U.  S.
Loss IN Dollars
$102,500,000
74,000,000
135,000,000
Percentage Loss IN Yield
43 72.3
57.2
amount of rain — if the season is not too hot or too cold—he may escape rust and other damage. This is the only winning card he can possibly hold out 5f a stacked deck.
Centuries of study and experiments have not enabled us to control or eradicate rusts in grain. We know they are destructive; we know their severity is influenced by weather conditions; we know that some cereals are more resistant to rust than others. But all these things the ancients knew. One of the common species of rust was named after a Roman deity. Shakespeare wrote of "the foul fiend" that "mildews the white wheat." Except that we are now more or less familiar with the life cycle of rust and have discovered a dozen or more species of the fungus, we know little more than did Theophrastus or Pliny who wrote about the parasite.
Rusts are universal. They are found in every coun¬ try where rain falls or dews descend. Austria and Rus¬ sia suffer large annual losses. England loses severely at intervals. The moist climate makes wheat growing impossible in China and Japan. It is estimated that the annual rust damage to the wheat crop in the United States, exclusive of epidemic years, aggregates fifteen or twenty million dollars.
Russian peasants consider an epidemic of rust a visi¬ tation from the Almighty. We, in America, are not so superstitious. We simply suffer the loss as a matter of course and convince ourselves that nothing can be done. Meanwhile the wheat acreage and the annual losses from rust in the two countries average about the same. Rusts, smuts, mildews and the majority of other plant diseases are in reality small fungus growths or parasites which live upon the cereals and sap their vitality.
Many species of rust grow upon grains, grasses, weeds, and even trees. They are known as rusts because at certain stages they are similar in color to iron rust. But in no way are they connected with the rust of metals. There are at least two species of wheat rust in the United States; There are probably more. The most common is the orange leaf rust which affects the leaf of the plant but rarely does much damage. The spe¬ cies which creates such havoc in wheat is some¬ times called red rust and at other times black rust. The latter is but an ad¬ vanced stage of the red rust This rust affects the stem of the plant and is notice-