Brian: Fungus among us

Onida, South Dakota—Where do mushrooms go to get a drink? To the salad bar of course! Did you find that joke a little dull? Don’t worry … it will grow on you (like a fungus). Maybe I’m not the best comedian, but I promise you I’m still a fungi. Okay, enough with the fungus jokes or there won’t be mushroom left in this week’s update to tell you about the actual “fungus among us” here in South Dakota.

 

There’s been a little hiccup in our spring wheat harvesting, all caused by a fungus you’ve probably never even heard of called ergot. Ergot is a plant disease caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. During the pollination process wheat can become infected by wind-born spores, often originating from grasses along the roadside or neighboring pastures. Once attached to the wheat head these spores ooze a sticky substance, and that “fungal ooze” is spread by insects or rainwater that splashes from plant to plant. An entire field can become infected very quickly, especially during a wet spring growing season.

 

Those sticky spores eventual transform into ergot bodies located inside the wheat heads. These ergot bodies “hijack” where a kernel is supposed to form. Instead you end up with a fungal mass that looks like an oversized wheat kernel. These “imposter kernels” have a dark purple exterior that makes them easily stand out in a handful of golden wheat or when viewed against the glass of the combine grain tank window.


The purple “oversized imposter kernel” you see here is ergot.  It’s not grain, just a fungal mass that causes headaches.


The spring wheat looks beautiful, but there is a fungus hiding out there.  

 

Of course no one wants fungus in their morning bowl of cereal or sub sandwich at lunch. Like any other fungus, people and animals can become very sick from ingesting ergot. For this reason, a truckload of wheat that contains more than 0.02% of ergot contamination has to be downgraded in quality, and that lower quality usually means it cannot be sold as a food-grade product. Often this means the elevator will reject your load if it contains too much ergot, or if accepted must be segregated in a separate storage area away from uncontaminated wheat.

 

Since many elevators are storing this year’s big crop in outside bunkers where everyone’s grain goes into one big pile, ergot creates a monumental headache for farmer’s and storage facilities alike. Usually the amount of ergot is minimal enough that it can be blend together with good wheat until there is such a small amount of fungus it is inconsequential. That’s a simple solution, but it takes time. During harvest there’s not much extra time to undertake a large-scale blending effort and complete all the testing that goes along with it.


Glen waits in line at the grain terminal bunker to unload.  Grain companies are carful to not contaminate an entire pile of wheat with ergot, so they have been reject many loads after grading it too toxic for consumption.


Brenda arrives with 1,400, ready to send the next load to the bin.  The shadows foreshadow the evening harvest hours that are about to begin.

 

Many farmers are choosing to put this wheat in on-farm storage and work with elevators for future delivery instead of taking a price reduction for the grain. So the trucks have been taking all the spring wheat bushels to a bin site, meaning they have to get in and out of the trucks to unload and work in the dust and heat a little more. That’s not so much fun, but after hauling on mostly the same roads for three weeks now it is a welcome change of scenery. The spring wheat has been yielding around 65 bushels per acre, despite the fungal infection.


Cameron unloads his spring wheat with ergot in a bin.  After the busy harvest push is over elevators and farmers will begin the process of how to make this wheat bring top dollar, despite the fungus.

 


Cameron heads down the dirt path that divides the field, spoiling what could have been very long rows.  The fields are so big here, and a birds eye view really helps you understand the scale of it all.  

 

The acres are cutting off quickly, and suddenly the end of our 40th harvest season is only a few days away. While we’ve been dealing with “the fungus among us,” you can’t help but feel like we’ve been infected, too. This harvest lifestyle is almost like a disease, an addiction that runs in your blood. Symptoms include drowsiness caused by too many long harvest days, the aching need to operate heavy machinery and mild depression when it’s all over. There is no cure, so it’s best to just make the most of it and enjoy a few more spectacular sunsets before harvest 2022 comes to an end.

 

Brian Jones can be reached at brian@allaboardharvest.com.

All Aboard Wheat Harvest is brought to you by ITC Holdings, CASE IH, Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children, US Custom Harvesters Inc., Unverferth Mfg. Co. Inc., Lumivia CPL by Corteva Agriscience, Kramer Seed Farms, and High Plains Journal.

 

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