Skip to main content
ARS Home » Midwest Area » Morris, Minnesota » Soil Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #373810
Research Project: Optimizing Oilseed and Alternative Grain Crops: Innovative Production Systems and Agroecosystem Services

Location: Soil Management Research

Title: Germination patterns in seeds produced in apical and basal fruits of two Thlaspi arvense populations

Author
item EDO-TENA, EVA - Universitat De Lleida
item Gesch, Russell - Russ
item ROYO-ESNAL, ARITZ - Universitat De Lleida

Submitted to: Agronomy
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/21/2020
Publication Date: 5/25/2020
Citation: Edo-Tena, E., Gesch, R.W., Royo-Esnal, A. 2020. Germination patterns in seeds produced in apical and basal fruits of two Thlaspi arvense populations. Agronomy. 10:756. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10050756.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10050756

Interpretive Summary: Making a model that describes the germination of pennycress seeds based on thermal growing units (i.e., combination of time and temperature) will benefit scientists studying this new oilseed and allow growers to predict plant emergence, which will help them to manage pennycress as a crop. A study was done to do just this using seeds of pennycress produced under vastly different climates in the US and Spain. An added objective was to determine if differences in germination exist between seeds produced at the top of the plant (apical seed) or produced at the bottom (basal seed). Slight differences were detected between apical and basal seed, but overall the germination rate based on thermal growing units was similar. Therefore, the data were combined and used to make a convenient model to help predict pennycress seed germination based on time and temperature.

Technical Abstract: Germination differences between seeds from apical and basal fruits of two populations of Thlaspi arvense L. produced in two different climates (Mediterranean and Continental Temperate) were studied. Apical seeds germinated more and earlier than basal seeds, mainly when they were produced in Lleida, while these differences were not as clear for seeds produced in Minnesota, which germinated in a greater amount than those of Lleida. Despite these differences, germination rates were similar in all cases, allowing data to be combined to form a germination model. The results show the importance of the seed production site if this species was considered as a commercial oilseed crop.