The effect of successive trapping and collection of spores of Pithomyces chartarum (Berk. & Curt.) M. B. Ellis from herbage

Abstract

A strip of short pasture herbage was successively spore-trapped and swept with suction equipment, and material bearing aleurospores of Pithomyces chartarum (Berk. & Curt.) M. B. Ellis collected. The numbers of these spores in the collected and purified material was determined by haemocytometer counts.

It is deduced from the rapid decline in the number of spores collected and the decline in spore trap counts following the first collection that the mobile volumetric spore trap collects spores mainly from the litter substrate on which they are produced, and from which they can be readily detached, rather than from the green leafage where they adhere more firmly.