Minutes for Working Group meeting on
Weed Germination and
Early Growth
14th EWRS Symposium, Hamar, Norway
Monday 18th June
20:00 to 21:00 (and a little later ...)
1.
Welcome and brief outline of WG activities for new members
(Andrea Grundy)
About
25 participants were present at the meeting.
AG
announced that she was stepping down after 8 years, her replacement
as chariman of the group will be Ilse A. Rasmussen.
AG
gave a short introduction to the work in the group for the benefit
of those present who did not already know this. The group has
previously conducted a common experiment, which was published in
Weed Research: Grundy, A.C., Peters, N.C.B., Rasmussen, I.A.,
Hartmann, K.A., Sattin, M., Andersson, L., Mead, A., Murdoch, A.J.,
Forcella, F. (2003): Emergence of Chenopodium album and Stellaria
media of different origins under different climatic conditions. Weed
research 43(3), 163-176.
A
new experiment has been carried out at 11 sites in Europe and North
America. The plan is to repeat this with a slightly altered
protocol, we expect 12-15 sites to participate from autumn 2007. A
poster on the results from the new experiment is presented here at
Hamar. Alistair Murdoch is giving an oral presentation Thursday
morning on the viability/germination data of the seedlots used in
the experiment.
2.
Short presentation from the analysis of the current joint
experiment
(Jack Dekker)
Jack Dekker didn't participate in the experiment, but he found the
data so interesting that he volunteered to initiate an analysis of
them. In May, he spent a week in UK with Andrea Grundy, Andrew Mead
and Paul Neve working on the data.
The
group had a discussion on the use of daydeegrees (DDG) vs julian
week – the conclusion was, that if you use DDG in the primary
analysis of the data, you've made assumptions about what drives
germination.
3.
Discussion regarding the modifications to the new joint
experiment protocol
(Ilse Rasmussen)
The new experiment will be
initiated in autumn 2007. Different points on the new protocol was
disucssed. The preliminary protocol will be sent to all those
interested in participating in the experiment, and they still have
the chance to give comments to it before it is finalised.
Please report to Ilse whether you want to participate.
4.
Proposal for joint study to look at the effect of maturation
environment on seed dormancy, germination and emergence
(Andrea Grundy/Jack Dekker on behalf of
Paul Neve)
A new
joint study has been proposed by Paul Neve: the common seedlot
should be used to grow plants until maturity at different sites.
After that, Paul would then grow the seed harvested in UK and so be
able to characterise the differences that arise from the conditions
of the mother plant. A discussion arose about pollination and
whether it will be possible to shield against this without
influencing the conditions, e.g. if the flowers are enclosed in some
kind of bag, this will greatly influence environment. One opinion
was that
cross pollination is not so important if we want to know about the
maternal environment. The seeds will be a mix of the common seedlot
and the local seed, but the most important is the maternal
environment. One suggestion was to grow a large area and then only
harvest plants in the middle. This could be a problem for those who
have to harvest the seeds to sow.
Please report back to Paul Neve whether you want to take part or
have any concerns.
5.
Funding opportunity from U.S. Government's grant program on
"weedy and invasive species." to support analysis workshops on
international collaborations (Andrea Grundy on behalf of
Frank Forcella)
The working group would
very much welcome the initiative of Frank Forcella to try to apply
for grants to support work in the group.
6.
Announcement of new Working Group Co-ordinator
(Andrea Grundy)
see 1.
7.
All other business
The
next meeting will be held in Perugia, Italy, hosted by Francesco Tei,
either in June or September 2008. The dates 16.-17. June are being
considered, as they are adjacent to the ISOFAR-conference in Modena,
Italy (18.-20. June 2008).
Please report back to Ilse if this date is/is not acceptable.
