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Project ID: 07-1-3-10

Year: 2007

Date Started: 06/04/2007

Date Completed: 09/30/2010

Title: Annual Brome Biocontrol after Wildfire Using a Native Fungal Seed Pathogen

Project Proposal Abstract: Competition from annual bromes (cheatgrass and red brome) is a major obstacle to post-fire seeding success in arid ecosystems. Currently available control methods do not eliminate the annual brome carryover seed bank We will examine the feasibility of using a native fungal seed pathogen (Pyrenophora semeniperda) as a biocontrol organism to eliminate these carryover seeds. This pathogen is already abundant in annual brome seed banks and can kill up to 90% of carryover seeds, even at naturally occurring inoculum levels. Our study has three principal objectives: to determine the effectiveness of this pathogen as a biocontrol organism, alone and in combination with other control measures, to evaluate risk to non-target organisms, including seeded species, and to develop strategies for minimizing identified risks. This pathogen is a generalist known to attack seeds of many cool season grasses. We will examine the risk to the seeds of native species in laboratory host range and field inoculum persistence studies, and will develop a method to mitigate any risk using fungicidal seed dressings that can protect at-risk seeded species. We will carry out field inoculation experiments in two years on burned areas at three cheatgrass sites and two red brome sites. We will determine how effectively the seed pathogen eliminated the carryover seed bank, how well the combined treatments reduced total seed bank size, whether pathogen inoculum loads created by the treatments pose a risk to seeded species, and how this risk can be mitigated using fungicidal seed dressings. We will also address the question of inoculum persistence.

Principal Investigator: Susan E. Meyer

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: RMRS-Shrub Sciences Laboratory

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Phil S. Allen	Brigham Young University	Department of Plant & Wildlife Sciences
Co-Principal Investigator	Julie Beckstead	Gonzaga University	Department of Biology
Federal Cooperator	Susan E. Meyer	Forest Service	RMRS-Shrub Sciences Laboratory
Federal Fiscal Representative	Judy A. Perry	Forest Service	RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Fort Collins

Project Locations

Consortium

Great Basin

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

	ID	Type	Title
	8986	Refereed Publication	Fire Effects on the Cheatgrass Seed Bank Pathogen Pyrenophora semeniperda
	8982	Refereed Publication	Characterizing the Interaction Between a Fungal Seed Pathogen and a Deleterious Rhizobacterium for Biological Control of Cheatgrass
	8983	Refereed Publication	The Quick and the Deadly: Growth vs. Virulence in a Seed Bank Pathogen
	8987	Refereed Publication	First Report of Pyrenophora seminiperda in Turkey and Greece
	8985	Refereed Publication	A Seed Bank Pathogen Causes Seedborne Disease: Pyrenophora semeniperda on Undispersed Grass Seeds in Western North America
	8981	Refereed Publication	Cheatgrass Facilitates Spillover of a Seed Bank Pathogen onto Native Grass Species
	8984	NonRefereed Publication	Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) Biocontrol Using Indigenous Fungal Pathogens
	8405	MS Thesis	The Grass Seed Pathogen Pyrenophora semeniperda as a Biocontrol Agent for Annual Brome Grasses

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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