FIGHT WITH FUNGI

Hokitika Guardian, 13 April 1931, Page 6

FIGHT WITH FUNGI

NEW ZEALAND’S SHARE IN EMPIRE TASK. combating losses. LONDON, .March 2. Millions of harmful fungi, ranging from liny spores which can be seen only under a microscope, to huge abby forest growths as big across as an umbrella have, in the last lew weeks, been moved into a big £12.000 building just erected at Kew, near London. This is the new headquarters of Imperial Mycological Institute, formerly the Bureau ol Mycology, which has been limit with the aid of tin Empire Marketing Board grant. The institute is supported jointly by New Zealand and the other Dominions, the Colonies, and the Home Country, and houses specimens of fungi collected in every part of the Empire, and causing every sort of plant disease, from wheat rusts to fruit rots, and mosaic leaf diseases to rootgrowths. AMAZING DESTRUCTION. Fungi are often just as destructive to Empire crops as insects. They are said to cost 'New Zealand, for instance, no less than. £2,221,500 worth of roof and cereal crops every year. Rust lias been estimated to do £5,000,000 worth of damage annually in Canada and up to £2,000.000 in New •South Wales, and to cause an annual world loss of £60,000,000. Fungus pests of all sorts destroy, it is said, about 15 per cent, of Australia’s totai crop product ion, of £15,000.000 worth of produce. Coffee leaf disease cost Ceylon from £12,009,1000 to £15,000,000 In the tmi years following its appearance in 1868. and led to the abandonment of coffee cultivation in the island. GOOD WORK. Mycologists, scientists who are working to stem me loss, are the Empire’s plant doctors. Almost every crop that glows comes, at one time or another, ior treatment, diagnosis, advice, or inlormaiion. to the institute at Kew. I lie ik w building stands on the famous Kew Green, by the side of the oner Thames, and within sight of an old grey church where the painter Uainsborough is buried. It has been so designed as to harmonise perfectly with its surroundings. The only external ilue to its real purpose is a frieze ol toadstools over the door. \\ lic-if a specimen arrives at the institute of which Dr. E. J. Butler, F.R.S.. is director, it is inuoculatod into an artificial medium and it carefully cultivated. “Cultures,” as these miniature garden plots of fungi are called, are usually grown on media such as beef jelly or agar-agar. • Recently a new medium has been discovered—oats. Fungi that absolutely n fused t.o grow in other laboratories have fallen for the subtle flavour, and, like racehorses, flourished on the diet. Not a week Masses without some new and unnamed species of fungus being received. When a, new species has to be named, that privilege often belongs to the man who sent ft. jn. Many fungi have been christened in romantic ways. One was called Latirensis, after Laura, the wife of the discoverer. When the disease is diagnosed the overseas • mycologist, is. sent a dossier of all that is known up to date about that, particular fungus. and, in, the ease of colonial officers, often working with inadequate laboratories and libraries, In* is also furnished with a prescription to deal with it. MOULDS THAT EAT BUTTER. A scientist is now studying at tlr* Institute, on behalf of the New Z aland a special family of moulds which oaf butter. The sam kind of fungi also damage copra which contains a fat similar in chemical composition to butfer-lat. .Special facilities have been provided in the new building for overseas workers. Fungi not only have a wide rang'' of appetites, but. they "ill flourish in a greater range of climates than almost a n other form of life. Some (such as the butter tribe), will grow and thrive when their temperature is below freezing point, and others enjoy themselves most on West African cocoa when it. is 122 degrees ip the shade. Co-operation between a Dominion and the institute at Kew recently solved an -important problem in the marketing of British Columbia Sitka snruee. a leading timber for the construction of aeroplane propellers. Tt has to undergo very severe tests before use. and a large percentage of apparently sound .timber at one time bad to be rejected. At first no trace could bo found of any i-ots or insects, but finally the tiny tentacles of a fungus were observed. Then the problem was taken up in Canada. A woman scientist went to British Columbia and discovered lie* villain of the piece on the ..growing trees. Infected trees are ated before tliev are cut. and further. transport is seceded no by overhead carriage and the long torrid voyage through the Panama Canal avoided. Now the fungus has practically ceased to give trouble. “BLACK ARM” TN COTTON. Tip, plant doctors of the bureau do nor a 1 wavs stay at home. Sometimes thee “go the rounds” to bedsides of particularly suffering patients overseas, The director is row ir die

Sudan studying a cotton disease called “black-arm,’’ which is caused by bacteria and is giving a, good deal of trouble. Recently ft has spread to Uganda. Two yeas ago I)r Butler went to Nyasaland to investigate a new tea disease, and another officer visited Dominica to study wither-tip . of limes, which, first seen there in 1022, reduced the crop on some estates by 90 per cent., and has led to the abandonment of many plantations, “Prevention is be Tier than cure is as sound a piece of wisdom in myeolcgx as in medicine. One of the institute s hardest and most important tusks i s to prevent the spread of plant diseases which arc at present local.vd and Dr Butler’s stall' makes a special study of the whole plant quarantine question. \Yifli the opening of the new builoi,ig an important new step has therefore been taken toward cutting ho waste out of Empire production.