Clarke Courier

Home-Made Seed Treater

Blacksburg, Va.--Treating seed grains for smuts and other seed-borne diseases has been practiced for many years. According to legend, a group of farmers salvaged a cargo of wheat from a sunken ship off the coast of England back about 1650. They sowed the seed to see if it would grow. The wheat not only grew, but was relatively free from smut. As a smut-control measure, therefore, the farmers thereafter treated their seed with a brine solution with fair results.

In recent years, says S. B. Fenne, pathologist for the Virginia Agricultural Extension Division, scientists have evolved an organic mercury dust for preventing stinking smut in spring wheat, loose and covered smuts in oats, smuts in barley and sorghum, and certain seedling diseases of corn.

Since some of these newer chemical dust disinfectants came into use, however, there has been need for a suitable treating machine for mixing the dust with the seed. M. B. Moore, of the University of Minnesota, has designed a simple, efficient treater that any farmer handy with tools can make in a short time. Furthermore, the total cost of materials is not likely to exceed $3.50. With it two men can treat about 40 bushels of seed an hour.

Complete plans for the treater, including construction specifications and how to use the completed machine, may be obtained by writing to S. B. Fenne, Extension Service, V. P. I., Blacksburg, Va.