Emergence and performance of volunteer oilseed rape (Brassica napus) in different crops

Abstract

Volunteer oilseed rape (OSR, Brassica napus L.) causes various agronomic problems in crop rotations and can contribute to gene dispersal by pollen and by seed admixture. A 4-year field experiment (2008–2011) was set up in south-west Germany to investigate the performance of volunteers derived from two OSR cultivars with different levels of seed dormancy. Volunteers of a high-dormancy (HD) and a low-dormancy (LD) OSR cultivar were deliberately generated by spreading 10,000seedsm−2 on a field in August 2008 and 2009. Four different crops were grown on that area in the first year following the seed rain: winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), winter turnip rape (Brassica rapa L.), spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and field pea (Pisum sativum L.). In the second year, maize (Zea mays L.) was sown uniformly across all plots. Numbers of OSR seedlings emerging in early autumn shortly after seed rain were not connected with the size of the soil seed bank in early spring of the following year. The seeds of the HD-cultivar formed a much greater soil seed bank (up to 14% of the initially spread seed number) compared with the LD-cultivar (up to 1.3%) in the soil layer of 0 to 30cm in early spring 2009 and 2010). Across all crops, considerably more volunteers of the HD-cultivar than of the LD-cultivar were present at several survey dates in the first year following seed rain. The highest number of volunteers originated from the HD-cultivar with up to 11volunteersm−2 in winter turnip rape compared with a maximum of 0.48plantsm−2 in the other crops. Cultivar-specific differences in volunteer density were observed as well in maize two years after OSR seed rain. Flowering and seed setting volunteers were only present in 2010 and the flowering time was crucially overlapping with that of sown winter OSR. The reproductive ability (seedsproducedm−2) of the LD-volunteers was five times lower in winter turnip rape than of the HD-volunteer; a similar trend was observed for the OSR volunteers in the other host crops.Strategies to definitely reduce unwanted effects of OSR volunteers, such as gene flow, should include the use of LD-cultivars with a low potential to form a soil seed bank, particularly if selective herbicides are not available, for instance in broad-leaved crops, or if the volunteers are herbicide-tolerant.