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Toxic ergot appears in Missouri pastures
Another year of cool wet weather followed by high heat and humidity has led to the fungal growth of ergot in Missouri grasses – and it is toxic if consumed by cattle and all livestock, as well as dogs and humans.
“We like to think of fescue toxicosis as toxic but ergot toxins, at the level they occur, they’re a little more than just toxic. They can cause some serious problems,” Craig Roberts, University of Missouri Extension Forage Specialist, tells Brownfield Ag News.
He says ergot looks like rodent droppings and they form on the seed heads of cereal grains and grasses. Those grains and grasses can be clipped to a four-inch height but he says use caution when baling. Roberts says, “It’s possible they could pick up ergot bodies, little brown, it looks like mouse droppings in the seed head. It’s possible if those were not knocked out during the clipping then they would be baled up in the hay.” Feeding that hay to cattle, he says, could kill them. Roberts says the first two weeks of July are “prime time” for ergot to appear.
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