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Crop and Pasture Science Crop and Pasture Science Society
Plant sciences, sustainable farming systems and food quality
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

The extent of herbicide resistance in Lolium rigidum Gaud. (annual ryegrass) across south-eastern Australia as determined from random surveys

John Broster https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5639-9581 A * , Peter Boutsalis B , Gurjeet S. Gill B and Christopher Preston https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7588-124X B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Gulbali Institute for Agriculture Water Environment, Charles Sturt University, Boorooma Street, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia.

B School of Agriculture, Food & Wine, University of Adelaide, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia.

* Correspondence to: jbroster@csu.edu.au

Handling Editor: Mary-Jane Rogers

Crop & Pasture Science 73(11) 1308-1317 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP21753
Submitted: 5 November 2021  Accepted: 26 April 2022   Published: 24 May 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context: Annual ryegrass (Lolium rigidum) is a major weed of crop production in southern Australia that readily develops resistance to herbicides. Resistance increases both yield losses and control costs associated with this species.

Aims: This study aimed to gauge the extent and distribution of resistance to herbicides in L. rigidum across south-eastern Australian grain production systems by collecting seed from randomly selected fields.

Methods: A total of 1441 weed populations were collected through random surveys conducted over 5 years across 13 agricultural regions of four states with these samples then tested for resistance to eight herbicides from six modes of action.

Key results: Resistance to diclofop-methyl and sulfometuron-methyl was most common, being present in 64% and 63% of populations respectively. Glyphosate resistance was present in 4% of populations collected. Only 15% of populations collected were susceptible to all herbicides tested. Large differences in resistance occurred between the 13 regions surveyed with resistance to diclofop-methyl ranging from 15% to 86% of populations and sulfometuron-methyl from 12% to 96%. Resistance to post-emergent herbicides tended to be higher than pre-emergent herbicides. Multiple resistance was common with 60% of populations collected having resistance to two or more herbicide modes of action.

Conclusions: There were significant differences in the extent of multiple resistance in L. rigidum populations collected from individual regions suggesting that the rates of resistance evolution have differed between regions.

The high incidence of herbicide resistance in L. rigidum populations randomly collected from south-eastern Australian cropping fields highlights the need for the adoption of additional weed control practices to mitigate the impact of this species on grain production systems.

Keywords: ACCase-inhibiting herbicide, ALS-inhibiting herbicide, diclofop-methyl, glyphosate, multiple resistance, pre-emergent herbicide, ryegrass, sulfometuron-methyl.


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