Blind seed disease is severe on perennial ryegrass when recommended cultural control methods are not practiced.

Ergot affects most grasses grown for seed.

The grass seed nematode affects chewings fescue and bentgrass.

Dwarf bunt injures the first seed crop of many grasses but spring sowing gives good control.

Leaf rust and stripe rust are especially injurious to Kentucky bluegrass. Orchardgrass is subject to severe injury by a number of leaf diseases that are most active in the spring.

In Oregon, afterharvest burning is an important part of the recommended control program for blind seed, ergot, nematode, rust, and some other leaf diseases. Large propane burners sometimes are used to supplement the field burn to destroy disease inoculum where there is doubt that the field burn was adequate.

THE GRASSHOPPER was among the first recognized insect pests of grasses. The sod webworm works on the basal parts of the grass plant and may be destructive to the fine fescues and Kentucky bluegrass.

Silvertop has a possible relationship to thrips and is destructive to seed crops of most perennial grasses.

Other commonly destructive insects are the Banks grass mite, aphids, mealy bugs, cutworms, stem maggots, and meadow plant bugs.

Afterharvest burning is an aid in controlling the sod webworm, silver-top, meadow plant bugs, thrips, mites and others.

Pesticides also are effective against certain insects.

Field mice sometimes are destructive in grass crops. Heavy populations have practically killed out grass fields. Such infestations are destructive to crops in general, and area-wide control with poison baits is required.

THE REMOVAL of crop residues after harvest is important in maintaining maximum yields of grass seed. Development of seed stalks and yields of seed are improved if the grass aftermath is removed.

Since harvesting with a combine has become general, considerable quantities of loose straw must be removed from the field. Shredding with a rotary mower or chopper and attempts to incorporate the material into the soil have been unsatisfactory where the residue is heavy.

Many growers windrow the straw and bale' it for livestock roughage or bedding and pasture the aftermath.

In some places, postharvest burning to remove crop residues is increasing. This method has some practical merits. It is cheap and has value in the control of some injurious insects and diseases. Injurious insects and diseases usually increase when crop residues are not removed.

Preharvest crop conditioning with desiccants chemical sprays that kill and cause quick drying of the exposed plant parts may be used before direct combining of the standing crop.

The method appears to be practical only under conditions of high temperature and low humidity and on open erect grass stands. The most commonly used material is DNBP, a dinitro spray. Application is by airplane at rates of 1 to 3 pints in 10 to 15 gallons of weed oil per acre. The crop should be ready to combine within 3 to 5 days after treatment.

Chemical injury to grass seeds and reduction in germination may occur from use of a desiccant. Injury to tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass seeds has been observed. Seeds of Sudan-grass and blue panicgrass are tolerant because of their heavy, waxy hulls.

When to harvest is a problem that confronts all seedgrowers. In every grass seed field, as maturity approaches, there are grass plants in different stages of seed ripening. On every grass plant also are seeds in various stages of maturity, especially in humid weather and when fields are irrigated.

The mature seed shatters in many grasses so that it may be lost on the ground if it is left too long. It is not practical therefore to leave the crop unharvested until all of the seeds are ripe.

The grower's question of when to harvest is decided by estimating when he can get the most mature seed without excessive loss by shattering of the earliest seed.

Grass seeds may reach physiological maturity or attain maximum dry weight before the head appears ready to harvest. Higher yields may be possible because of reduced shattering loss with earlier harvesting than is generally practiced. In general, grass seed is likely to be physiologically mature when it has passed the milk stage and is in soft-to-medium dough.

Direct combining of the standing seed crop and bulk handling of the seed do not mean earlier harvesting when facilities for quickly reducing the moisture in seed, which may average 35 to 45 percent, are limited.

Newly harvested seed of high moisture content will heat and mold, and losses in germination and good appearance will occur if it is left in the bulk for just a few hours.

Early harvesting is generally practiced only when the crop is windrowed and allowed to cure in the field before combining.

Indeterminant seed maturity is a problem with a number of warm-season grasses. Harvest generally is delayed until there is some shattering from the tips of the inflorescence. Then harvest must be completed in a few days. At that stage, most of the seed has reached a maturity that will give good germination.

We do not know exactly when the growing of grass seed became a distinct enterprise in the United States. Orchardgrass, timothy, and Kentucky bluegrass probably were the first grasses to be harvested for seed.

The first known commercial production of seed of orchardgrass occurred possibly before 1850 in Kentucky. Timothy seed was a sizable crop item in Illinois in 1877. Stripping seed from bluegrass pastures in Kentucky was a well-established practice in 1900. Smooth bromegrass seed was harvested in Kansas about 1895. It is not known if any of these early plantings were made primarily for seed production rather than for forage with only intermittent seed harvests at opportune times.

We do know that much of our domestic production of grass seeds came as byproducts in the early part of this century. The actual planting of grass fields for the primary purpose of growing seed crops seems to have begun on sizable scale between 1910 and 1920. Expansion was gradual until the 1930's, when the effects of drought and the need for soil-conserving practices brought increased demand for grass seeds and stimulated seed production.

The names and doings of pioneers in important undertakings always are of special interest. We list a few men who we know pioneered in growing grass seed.

The first commercial harvest of orchardgrass seed, possibly before 1850, was said to have been at Goshen, Ky.

Edwin C. Johnson of Portland, Oreg., grew seed of common ryegrass before 1900. Smooth bromegrass seed was first harvested about 1895 by the Achenbach brothers of Washington,. Kans., and Charlie Jeanerette of Madison, Kans.

Dr. E. B. White of Leesburg, Va., and Robert N. Legard of Hillsboro, Va., began producing seed of orchard-grass shortly after 1900. They found it to be a good cash crop that required little labor, and growing the seed soon became popular in northern Virginia. Among the first growers of perennial ryegrass seed, about 1920, was J. E. Jenks of Tangent, Oreg. Max Heinrichs, a German immigrant, specialized in growing seed of smooth bromegrass, tall fescue, and crested wheatgrass near Pullman, Wash., before 1930.

APPARENTLY the first commercial grass seeding in cultivated rows was in 1927 with crested wheatgrass by Leroy Moomaw of Dickinson, N. Dak. Neal and Sam Parker of Creston, Mont., also made commercial plantings in rows in 1932, as did Walter Holt of Pendleton, Oreg.

Howard Wagner of Imbler, Oreg., followed with row culture within a short time, but special recognition is due him for the high standards of seed quality he maintained in his crops of crested wheatgrass, fescues, bentgrass, bluegrass, and native grasses.

Commercial culture in rows of native grasses of the Great Plains was begun with switchgrass and sideoats grama about 1942 by Clyde Dennis, Larned, Kans.

Among others who followed him were H. W. Clutter of Garden City, Kans., and Harold Hummell of Fairbury, Nebr. Pioneers in the commercial harvest of bluegrama, buffalograss, and bluestem seed from native grass lands were Tom Munger, Enid, Okla.; Bob Hartley, Vinita, Okla.; and Glen Miller, Lincoln, Nebr.

GEORGE A. ROGLER, a research agronomist, since 1936 has done grass breeding and pasture and range management research at the Northern Great Plains Field Station, Mandan, N. Dak.

HENRY H. RAMPTON is a research agronomist in the Department of Agriculture and is stationed at Oregon State College, Corvallis. He has conducted research on seed production of small-seeded grasses and legumes since 1938.

M. D. ATKINS has been Washington field Plant materials technician for the Great Plains States with the Soil Conservation Service, Lincoln, Nebr., since 1956. Previously he was plant materials technician for Kansas and Oklahoma.