Montana farmer-stockman. [volume], September 01, 1951, Image 1

About Montana farmer-stockman. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1947-1993

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
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MONTANA
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By JERRY LESTER, Roving Reporter
THE RUST SPREADING BARBERRY BUSH still exists as a threat to Montana's
wheat and small grain production. Despite the continuing and highly effective eradi
cation program largely responsible for the facts that from 1941 to 1946 there was
damage amounting to only a trace on our wheat acreages and since 1946 thére hais
been no damage, the bushes are still being found in the state. This fact is proven by
the pictures on this page and reports from the state department of agriculture erad
ication crews working in the state this summer.
The crews started working in the state late in June and in two months found and
eradicated 1,341 bushes in Lewis and Clark county, according to L. J. Barthell, USDA
agent, supervising the barberry control program in Montana. Barberry bushes were
found on three private properties in Cascade county in just the first few days of the
survey now in progress.
Added to the fact that the barberry still exists as a breeding ground for the
now commoner varieties of black stem wheat rust, such as race 56 of Ceres, is the
recent occurrence of the new race 15-B, This new race 15-B has proved to be the most
virulent and destructive race of wheat stem rust ever found in North America. In
1950 the loss to durum wheat alone, caused by race 15-B, amounted to $19,060,000 in
North Dakota and Minnesota.
New rust races have been produced
on the barberry that were able to attack
all of the commercially grown varieties
grain thought previously resistant,
i new races will continue to come
into being as long as barberry bushes
are growing in ter ritory where they will
rust, according to the department of
agriculture. Some 300 races are known
to date and new ones are coming up
constantly on the barberry breeding
grounds.
To older farmers in some parts of
Montana, the mention of black stem
wheat rust still brings a look bordering
on terror to their faces as they recall •
the years of 1904, 1906 and 1916 when
disastrous crop failures occurred over
large areas of the nation. Losses amount
ed to over 200,000,000 bushels in just
one of those years. There is on record
an instance of crop destruction amount
ing to $50,000 in one year from rust *
infection originating on a single bar
berry. Montana has lost as much as 12
percent of her wheat, oats, barley and
of
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Perhaps Montana's situation looks pretty good by comparison in this map above showing the
extent of the barberry control program in 18 of the northern grain producing states co-operating
with the federal government in the eradication program. But the fact is, each of the dots above
represent one rural property on which barberry bushes have been destroyed from 1918 to 1950.
Some 52,288 bushes were destroyed on 720 properties in Montana.
MONTANA
NORTHERN
AND
WYOMING
rye crops in one year because of this rust.
Just one of the rust spreading bar
berry bushes makes local and widespread
epidemics possible. A single bush under
favorable weather conditions can pro
duce about 70 billion spores in a season.
Each of these spores from the barberry
can start a single infection or postule
on a grain or grass plant. The postule on
a plant could contain 50,000 to 400,000
spores. In turn each of those spores can
reproduce every 10 days.
Windblown Spores
These dustlike infection spores may
be carried by the wind for many miles
and start infection centers in grain
fields. Each new rust center continues
to reproduce and spread the disease.
Live rust spores have been collected
from airplanes at elevations of 10,000
feet. With proper wind and weather con
ditions, rust originating from one bar
berry may cause a very destructive
epidemic.
The disease spreading potentialities
of just a few bushes was well demon
^ =ss %
RED STASE OF STEK^^i
:■■'" Rust on growing grain f
REPRODUCES EVERY SEVEM^TO TEN DAYS
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^STAGES OF RUST*
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STAGE OF RUST ON
BARBERRY LEAF
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Stem rust is a disease of cereals and grasses that attacks
the stems of plants. It is caused by a fungus, a low type
of plant life that spreads alternately on barberries and on
grain and grasses as indicated in the illustration abore.
The rust is spread between host plants by the wind-borne
seeds or spores. It survives the winter in the black-spore
stage on grain stubble, in straw piles and on wild grasses.
These black spores cannot attack new crops of grains and
grasses in the spring. But they do infect susceptible bar
berry bushes, and the spring stage of the rust develops
on the leaves. Then the diseased barberry leaves infect
wild grasses and grain fields nearby and tb-> red or sum
mer stage of the disease develops on these plants. Once
this stage is established in a grain field, the rust sprrads
by its windblown spores from plant to plant and field to
field over large areas given proper conditions. After har
vest. the over-wintering or blac% spore stage again forms
on the ripened straw and grasses, thus completing one
year's life cycle.
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Pictures above show barberry bush "finds" in Lewis
and Clark county this summer. Department of agriculture
eradication crews talk with a property owner explaining
the reason that her fine barberry bush seen to right will
have to be killed out. Picture to right shows crew mem
ber starting to down the bush. Kext step will be to apply
"animate" chemical onto the cut-off canes or apply salt
to the canes and surrounding area.
learn to know the
RUST-SPRE
BARBERRY
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THREE!