Talk:Corn smut
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Mushrooms

These are not technically mushrooms, are they? But are these "tumors" comparable? Are they fruiting bodies? —Ashley Y 21:03, 2005 Apr 5 (UTC)

The huitlacoche is in the Basidiomycota, this is the family easily recognisable as 'mushrooms' within the fungal Kingdom, you can see a picture here [1], they look quite like field mushrooms growing from the corn cob.--nixie 23:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That page refers to Homobasidiomycetes as "true mushrooms" and Ustilaginomycotina as "true smut fungi". But I accept that corn smut do resemble mushrooms, and coming from that I'm always surprised when people are grossed out by pictures and descriptions of them. —Ashley Y 05:29, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Tumours with teliospores are not comparable to mushrooms. Mushrooms usually feature basidia. These basidia give rise to haploid basidiospores. Tumours in contrast are filled with diploid teliospores. Upon germination teliospores generate a (pro)basidium. Basidiospores (sporidia, 'yeast' cells) bud of from this basidium.

Also; Basidiomycota are not mushrooms, although almost all mushrooms belong to this family. There are a number of ascomycete mushroomsformers, for example Morella esculenta.

Legality?

Anybody know what the status is for legal for import/legal for sale in the US? I.e. are there FDA regulations about corn smut?

You can by the fungi can in the US, it may also be imported for use as a food, although it does not seem to be readily available to the public in this form. Some US farm agencies are looking at growing smut on purpose since the fungi is quite valuable.--nixie 00:18, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article now has links to some projects growing corn smut for sale locally. it can also be bought canned. It can be bought at some farmers markets. i don't know about the legality of ity. I assume there's no law or FDA regulation against it but I'll double check by searching. it probably isn't wise to try and grow it deliberately anywhere near other corn crops.LiPollis 17:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

External links

In this edit, I removed several external links. Here’s my reasoning:

• Tansley review in New Phytologist – links to a generic Wiley page, not an article about corn smut; the actual article could be appropriate. However, if it’s an article about corn smut, it’s better as an inline citation due to WP:ELNO criteria 1. The EL section is not a holding area for sources.
• Corn Smut Recipes – this is a list of recipes, and Wikipedia is not a how-to manual. As an encyclopedia, it should contain information about corn smut, not how to prepare it. Wikihow may be a good candidate for this information, but Wikipedia is not. Since the link is not encyclopaedic, this would be a violation of WP:ELNO #4 – promotion. I also don't see it meeting the criteria of what to link.
• Smuts on the Internet – this is an extremely short page with no referencing. It’s from a university host, and Tom Volk may be a professor of botany, and that makes it suitable as a source perhaps. But not as an external link – again, ELNO#1. This adds little information and it could easily be integrated into the article if needed.
• Photographs of canned cuitlacoche - This is a comedy page. It’s funny. I love his characterization of fermented soybeans as little snotballs. I loved it when I first saw it on Ilovebackon and re-read it last night. But it’s not a source, it’s not informative, it’s portrayal as a source of pictures of corn smut is redundant to the commons link, the page is about smut, not canned smut, it’s got advertising, it’s self promotion, and again it’s a humour page, so not encyclopaedic. It’s got several ELNO strikes against it an no ‘what to links’ in its favour.
• GourmetSleuth huitlacoche page – this is a blog. ELNO # 11 specifically bars blogs. Also per the above, it’s recipes and Wikipedia is not a how-to manual, and it’s got minimal information so its got ELNO#1 against it. Plus advertising. Could perhaps be a source if there’s evidence he’s an expert.

The other two links remaining makes sense. Per Wikipedia:External_links#Important_points_to_remember, a small number of links is not a reason to add more. WLU (talk) 20:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)