An investigation of the effects of stage of ensilage on Nassella neesiana seeds, for reducing seed viability and injury to livestock

Abstract

The noxious weed Nassella neesiana is established on a wide range of productive land throughout southeastern Australia. N. neesiana seeds, when mature, are sharp, causing injury to livestock, thus posing a problem in fodder bales. To reduce infestations of agricultural weeds in situ, production of silage from weed-infested pastures is practised as part of integrated weed management (IWM). However, there is little data to demonstrate whether this process is useful to reduce infestations or the harmful properties of N. neesiana. Therefore, the minimum duration of ensilage required to reduce the viability of N. neesiana seeds was investigated, both with and without addition of ensilage inoculants in this process. Also, the decreasing propensity of the seeds to injure livestock, after various times and conditions of ensilage, was assessed. Ensilage inoculant reduced seed germination probability to zero after 35 days. When no inoculant was added, zero viability was achieved after 42 days. A qualitative assessment of the hardness of ensilaged seeds found seed husks were softer (and therefore safer) after 42 days, whether inoculant was used or not. Therefore, we suggest that both the viability of N. neesiana seeds and hardness of seed casings are significantly reduced after 42 days, thereby reducing the risks of seed dispersal and injury to livestock.

The Influence of Environmental Factors on Germination of Burcucumber (Sicyos angulatus) Seeds: Implications for Range Expansion and Management

“…All experiments were conducted in a factorial design with S. angulatus populations as the main factor and experimental treatments as the subfactor and were terminated 30 d after initiation. The viability of nongerminated seeds was tested using a triphenyl tetrazolium chloride test (Sawma and Mohler 2002), and germination was adjusted as viability-adjusted germination following Weller et al (2016). All treatments in each experiment had five replications (1 petri dish/pot per replication), and all experiments were repeated over time.…”

Ensiling Reduces Seed Viability: Implications for Weed Management

“…We assume the same for the seeds of M. albus that have already started to germinate in the silage, as seedlings are too unstable to survive the mechanical stresses associated with application or further processing. Other studies did not report germination in silage, but morphological changes in seeds indicating damage and, thus, limited survivability (Simard and Lambert-Beaudet, 2016;Weller et al, 2016).…”

“…This is also due to the fact that there is no systematic research on seed survival in silages, yet. Many of the studies on ensiling seeds have dealt with only one weed species (Overud, 2002;van Eekeren et al, 2006;James et al, 2011;Trolove and Dowsett, 2015;Weller et al, 2016) or with only one type of silage (Mayer et al, 2000;Koarai et al, 2015;Piltz et al, 2017). In addition, both silage types and methods used to determine seed viability often differed.…”

Seed Dormancy Differences Among Common Ragweed (Ambrosia Artemisiifolia L.) Populations Distributed in Different Climatic Regions of Turkey

“…The nongerminating seeds were tested for viability using the crush test (Sawma and Mohler, 2002). The final germination percentage was converted to viability adjusted germination (VAG) using the equation 1 (Weller et al, 2016);…”