Assessment of soil sampling methods to estimate wild oat (Avena fatua) seed bank populations

Abstract

Abstract Accurate and precise estimation of weed seed bank populations is critical to studying weed seed bank demographics. Research was conducted over 3 site-years in Montana to (1) examine the spatial distribution of wild oat seed banks on a small scale (1 m2 plots), (2) compare wild oat seed bank density sample means and precision between two soil samplers, and (3) predict the sample area needed to quantify a range of wild oat seed bank densities at several levels of precision. Seed bank sample means obtained with a large sampler (10- by 10-cm box) were greater than means obtained with a small sampler (4.4- or 3.8-cm-diam cylinder) for 15 of 18 seed banks. There was no clear advantage in precision (SE/mean) when sampling seed banks using a large number of small soil samples rather than using a small number of large soil samples. Furthermore, at very low seed bank densities, using a small number of large samples gave better precision. Precision improved as sample number increased for each seed bank at e...