Smut in the egg

[gmckenzie]

Have any of you grown corn and had a fungus called SMUT grown beneath the shuck? Well, I just cracked open some eggs that did not hatch in the incubator. About ten of them looked like they died just days before the hatch. But two of the eggs had enormous black blobs that looked like the smut that grows on corn. Can anyone identify this? Did the Black infect the other eggs. Only four from the incubator hatched. Ten very close to hatching. Two not fertilized. And two with the black, hideously foul smelling smut substance. A new one to me.

 

[Mosey2003]

I would imagine the embryos died rather young and were basically rotted. Bacteria can do some damage in 18 days.