Estimating tropical weed seed longevity with a laboratory test

Abstract

Longevity of weed seeds in the soil drives the cost and duration of weed control activities. Traditional methods for estimating weed seed longevity, such as repeated field soil sampling and buried packet trials can take many years and substantial resources to complete. A laboratory process, a Controlled Ageing Test (CAT) exposes seeds to an ‘ageing environment’ of 45 oC temperatures and 60% humidity. Data from this test is used to sort species into relatively transient, short lived or long-lived categories of weed seed longevity. This paper reports on examples from a series of trials that seek to correlate the data from CAT batches with longevity data from buried packet trials.