Sheep rumen digestion and transmission of weedy Malva parviflora seeds
P. J. Michael A B E , K. J. Steadman A D , J. A. Plummer B and P. Vercoe CA Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
B School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
C School of Animal Science, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
D School of Pharmacy, Division of Health Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia.
E Corresponding author. Email: pippamichael@graduate.uwa.edu.au
Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 46(10) 1251-1256 https://doi.org/10.1071/EA05285
Submitted: 17 October 2005 Accepted: 15 March 2006 Published: 13 September 2006
Abstract
The effect of sheep digestion and mastication on Malva parviflora L. seed transmission, viability and germination was investigated. Mature M. parviflora seeds were subjected to 2 seed treatments: ‘scarified’, where the hard seed coat was manually cut to allow imbibition, and ‘unscarified’, where the hard seed coat was not cut. Seeds were placed directly into the rumen of fistulated sheep and removed at 0, 12, 24, 36 and 48 h of rumen digestion. After 12 h of in sacco exposure to digestion in the rumen, the germination of seeds that were initially scarified dropped from 99.2 to 1.4% and longer exposure periods produced no germinable seeds. In contrast, seeds that were unscarified when placed in the rumen produced over 92% germination regardless of in sacco digestion time, although manual scarification after retrieval was essential to elicit germination. In a second experiment, unscarified seeds (29 000) were fed in a single meal to fistulated sheep and feces were collected at regular intervals between 6 and 120 h after feeding. Fecal subsamples were taken to determine number of seeds excreted, seed germination on agar and seed germination from feces. Major seed excretion in the feces commenced after 12 h and continued until 144 h, with peaks between 36 and 72 h after consumption. Although mastication and gut passage killed the majority of unscarified seeds, about 20% were recovered intact and over 90% of these recovered seeds were viable and could, thus, potentially form an extensive seed bank. A few excreted seeds (1%) were able to germinate directly from feces, which increased to a maximum of 10% after subsequent dry summer storage (3 months). Through information gained in this study, there is a potential to utilise livestock in an integrated weed management program for the control of M. parviflora, provided additional measures of weed control are in place such as holding periods (>7 days) for movement of livestock from weed infested areas.
Additional keywords: hardseeded, small-flowered mallow.
Acknowledgments
This study was part of Pippa Michael’s PhD dissertation, which was funded by the Grains and Research Development Corporation of Australia. We acknowledge the technical assistance from Clare Engelke (UWA), Brett Michael and Darren Chitty. For seed supplies we thank farmers C. and J. Michael.
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