Sooty Mold

Saturday, I harvested my winter wheat. I should have done it two weeks ago as they were hard and ready to be reaped, but I was busy and threw out my back and never quite got around to it.

There was also the problem of how to do it. Do I get a scythe? What else would I cut them with? Do I cut at the top or the bottom of the stalk? How do I winnow and thresh? Etc. I eventually decided to cut them just below the ear of grain with a pair of sharp kitchen scissors. Hardly medieval, I know, and surprisingly time consuming.

When I got out there to finally do it though, the tops of the stalks were covered in black spots. I cut them anyway and then went inside to do research about the spots. Here’s a picture of the harvested ears of corn:


Once at the computer, I found a website, The Guide to Wheat Diseases and Pests, which was very good at diagnosing my condition. It is a Black (or Sooty) Mold.

From these two websites: Wheat FAQ (USDA) and Weekly Crop Update it appears that it is not a serious problem and the wheat is still usable.

Now I just have to figure out how to thresh it. It’s not a big deal doing it with my fingers but it would be prohibitively time consuming to do it for a lot of grain. So I’m going to try a few different things this week and see how it goes. I’ll keep the events posted here.