The gangrene effect, I believe is caused by vasoconstriction, from the lysergides in there. Which hopefully means it's temporary and not some kind of
fungal infection.
But I hadn't even thought about the first point. Farmers do have a problem with ergot. It spreads around the crops as they wave about in the wind and
that can't go out for consumption. One method of removing it is to get out there, on foot and chop down the infected areas by hand. That can't be much
fun when you're used to using harvesters with 12ft spans on them for acres and acres.
I wonder if they could find it easier in the dark by shining a UV lamp over the crops and using something that can see very tiny lights better, like
camera for a telescope. Maybe the ears would be just visible as glowing specs on the strands. That'd only work if the strain contained lysergides,
which some of them don't.
They can also remove it as the grains go through the conveyors. The ears of grain are knocked off and carried away, which can also help knock the ears
of ergot into a separate bin, since the grains of crop are a known size and can be screened.
Sandoz published some interesting papers on ergot culturing in the wild. They had big fields that looked like something out of a Sci-Fi film with huge
overhead booms on tracks, which moved up and down the fields spraying them with inoculant.
Another method they tried was to mix the 'honey dew' that drips out of the ears of ergot with a little sugar. Then they made things out of planks of
wood that go on your hands, with lots of pins sticking through the other side. The idea was to wet some of the mixture onto the boards, then get out
on foot and simply 'slap' the ears of crop between the boards. The pins would puncture the grains and inject the spores from the dew. Works as well as
the overhead booms from what I remember.
I have only heard one mention of someone ever doing this outside of a lab or for a paper, and that was someone saying something about inoculating rye
with it and then burying the jars - and that it was the rainbow group of hippies doing this. I asked if they had any details on that, no response. I
am willing to believe it's possible, but am skeptical. If it was that easy, it'd be all over the shroomery; there's a constant stream of ergot
questions on there.
[Edited on 29-10-2010 by peach] |
Thanx for it! 