In Which lobiwan Contributes to the Ever Growing Amount of Smut on the 'Net

Here is a look at some dryland wheat on the 19th. As you can see, it is pretty ragged. The nice thing about the wheat looking so terrible all winter, though is that it does manage to look better with each passing week.
There is a fair amount of this present this year, which is Loose Smut. Loose Smut is a seed borne disease that is easily prevented by planting treated seed. Most wheat seed, though, is not treated, for various reasons. It is fairly expensive relative to the cost of seed, and most wheat seed dealers (us included) either don't have their own treaters or don't like messing (literally) with treatments. Also, most wheat seed in this area is handled in bulk, using trucks that are also used to deliver grain to the elevator. Most farmers don't want treated seed anywhere near their trucks for fear that they will forget to clean the truck thoroughly and have an entire load of grain turned away at the elevator. This makes it hard to justify the expense of owning a treater, since no one wants it anyway. We plant treated seed for our Seed production if possible, but this wheat is all for grain so was not treated.

These days they will give anyone a commercial applicator's license, as you can see here. You might want to raise that boom up, Chris.