Importance
If uncontrolled, loose smut can wipe out entire crops, since it replaces the grain. In areas where people depend on their grain crops for survival and don't have the money or technology resources to control it, the disease can be devastating. Not only does it wipe out the crop, growers cannot even try again next year since any seeds they were able to harvest will be infected and will not produce seed the following season.
Loose smut has recently become a more serious problem in the Ladakh region in the Himalayan mountains of India. This area has been particularly affected by global climate change and has experienced many new crop pests and diseases because of it. Barley is an important staple crop in this region and although loose smut is not the most prevalent disease of barley in the region, it has the potential to develop into a more serious problem in coming years.
In places like the United States where there are ample resources and technologies such as fungicide seed treatment, loose smut is not an especially important disease.
Read more about this topic: Ustilago Nuda F.sp. Hordei
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“Coming together again after a long day apart can be an experience where joy, relief, anger, and fatigue are all present in different degrees both for the parent and for the child. Because of their importance in marking the resumption of direct contact, reunions deserve as much attention and care as separations to enhance the relationship between parent and child.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)