Prototyping on farm nature management, a synthesis of landscape ecology, development policies and farm specific possibilities

Abstract

SUMMARY Greenhouse and field experiments showed that sharp eyespot disease can reduce establishment in wheat seedlings. Increasing disease severity caused a decrease in height and dry weight of surviving seedlings. Infection by the pathogen caused a reduction in tillering. Experiments also showed that a high incidence of disease can cause a reduction in the yield of grain of mature plants, but the disease level necessary for such effects is far higher than that usually encountered in the field. Survey work in the East of Scotland in 1963-65 showed a high percentage of crops infected with the disease. But even in 1964, a year of comparatively high disease incidence, there were few crops with a level of infection as high as that shown to affect yield.