Seed and Bulb production from Mechanically Planted Allium acuminatum Bulbs Barbara Hellier & Richard Johnson USDA-ARS Western Regional Plant Introduction Station, Pullman, WA Allium propagules for establishing crop or plants in a landscape Seed •Long storage life (approx. 10 years) •Takes 3 years from seed to seed •Seedlings fragile Dormant bulbs •Short storage life (approx. 6 months) •Flowers first year after sewing •Once in soil can survive draught Two year trial- 2009 and 2010 Propagule = dormant bulbs with 7 - 15 mm diameter Experimental Design: Randomized complete block w/ 4 reps per treatment Treatments: Hand planted bulbs 1inch between-plant spacing 2 inch between-plant spacing Mechanically planted bulbs 1inch between-plant spacing 2 inch between-plant spacing Field prep preplant: Plots rototilled for easy hand planting No fertilizer Planter: Hage Belt Cone Planter 60 bulbs per plot All bulbs planted at depth of 1 inch No irrigation DATA COLLECTED: Emergence Flowers/umbel Seed/plant Bulbs/plot (2009) Allium acuminatum umbel with open and immature capsules. Summary of emergence, flowers/umbel, seed harvested/plant, total seed weight, total no. seeds and 100 seed weight data from 25 randomly selected plants per plot for 2009 & 2010 avg. avg. total avg. 100 planting flowers/ avg. seed avg. total seed year method spacing emergence umbel seed/plant weight(g) no. seeds weight(g) 2009 hand 1inch 55.5 30.8 31.1 1.5 778.0 0.19 2009 hand 2inch 57.0 28.9 37.2 2.0 929.0 0.22 2009 mechanical 1inch 56.0 29.5 39.0 1.9 975.5 0.20 2009 mechanical 2inch 56.5 30.9 34.5 1.8 860.8 0.20 2010 hand 1inch 51.8 36.8 33.1 1.7 828.0 0.20 2010 hand 2inch 50.3 34.6 30.2 1.6 756.5 0.21 2010 mechanical 1inch 47.8 39.4 41.8 2.2 1043.5 0.21 2010 mechanical 2inch 52.0 37.0 34.7 1.8 866.3 0.21 Summary of bulb production from the Allium acuminatum seed production trial 2009. between avg. no. avg. no. planting bulb avg. total bulbs 7- bulbs avg. no. method spacing bulbs 15 mm <7mm bad bulbs hand 1 inch 94.0 64 b* 4.3 25.8 hand 2 inch 103.5 79 ab 1.3 23.8 mechanical 1 inch 104.2 81 a 1.3 21.8 mechanical 2 inch 104.2 72 ab 1.0 31.0 *Means sharing letters are not different using the LSD at P<0.05. Production problems Disease: Mostly disease free (so far) 2010 Rust outbreak (Rust was seen in wild populations in ID) Didn’t affect seed production in 2010. Weeds Shattering Summary: Mechanical bulb planting can successfully be used for seed production. There was no statistical difference in seed production for plots with one and two inch between bulb spacing. Between bulb spacing of two inches produced a higher number of 7-15mm diameter bulbs. Allium acuminatum seed increase plot, Pullman, WA. Thank you’s and Acknowledgements Great Basin Native Plant Selection and Increase Project Nancy Shaw Richard Johnson Rob Adair My Crew: Marie Pavelka Corey Wahl Emily Gibson Saber Jewel Thank you for listening! Diversity of Allium acuminatum in the Great Basin Robert Adair, RC Johnson, Barbara Hellier and Walter Kaiser USDA-ARS Western Regional Plant Introduction Station Pullman, Washington Large A. acuminatum population near Buchanan (Harney Co. OR) Pink areas on the hillside are flowering A. acuminatum. Background Rangeland restoration is increasingly important to improve habitat quality in arid western areas that have been severely degraded due to multiple factors including widespread fire damage, invasive exotic annual grasses and noxious weeds, anthropogenic development, recreation, livestock overgrazing, and mining. The Great Basin Native Plant Selection and Increase Project (NPSIP) represents a multi-organizational collaboration between federal and state agencies, universities and private companies to investigate and apply new techniques of range management to promote a healthy ecosystem (USFS-RMRS 2005). The continued threats to ecosystem health in the Great Basin rangelands have led to the loss of both plant and animal habitat . South of collection site at Martin Creek guard station (Humbolt County NV). For example, Greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus Bonaparte) currently occupy approximately 56% of suitable habitat available before the rapid settlement by people of European descent (BLM 2005). Survival and fecundity rates for sage grouse may depend on habitat quality, which is commonly quantified by the presence of key indicator species (Johnson and Figure 4. Dendrogram of individual and bulked samples from two populations of Braun 1999). The presence of wild onion ( Allium spp.) and other key shrubs and forbs are associated with good rearing habitat A. acuminatum constructed by unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averaging based on simple matching coeffficients of SRAP results. for sage grouse(Miller and Eddleman 2001). For this project we chose to collect and maintain Allium acuminatum Hook. (Alliaceae) for purposes of biodiversity conservation Conclusion/ Future Directions and potential future use in rangeland reclamation and restoration projects. A. acuminatum is a perennial herb native to North America which grows throughout most of the Western States and Western Canada (Figure 1) (USDA 2005). A. acuminatum has The use of GIS information allowed for efficient planning and organization of our fieldwork. Maps that were created identifyingpossible a large range compared to many of the North American native Alliums (Hellier 2000). Although many species of wild Alliums collection sites provided a visual aid for route planning. GIS data such as ecoregions and land status (ownership) were helpful in Figure 3. Distribution of A. acuminatum collection sites across the Great Basin. grow throughout the Great Basin, A. acuminatum was selected due to its wide range and association with quality sage grouse determining priority and appropriateness of collection sites. habitat. Genetic diversity will be analyzed using Sequence Related Amplified Polymorphisms (SRAPS) and these data along with additional information from common garden studies will be used to delineate seed transfer zones and choose sites for in-situ Although having coordinates for possible collection sites was generally useful, this was limited by the quality of the sourcedata. Herbarium conservation and germplasm for ex situ conservation. The in-situ conservation will be complementary to ongoing ex-situ specimen data identifying sites were at times over 40 years old, and habitat change can make them unreliable. Changes in land status were Results conservation at the Western Regional Plant Introduction Station. also important in our study since our objective was to collect mainly from BLM and USFS land. Determining land status from GIS created maps or software was not always feasible in the field, and therefore BLM Surface Management maps (1:100,000) were consulted orf The collection area spanned 1430 m (4692 ft) of elevation and covered approximately 620 km (385 mi.) east - increased resolution and ease of use. west and 445 km (277 mi.) north-south, between N 39 to 44 latitude and W 114º to 119º longitude in the Western United States (Figure 3). The bulbs from the 55 collection sites were counted, measured (diameter), Analysis of SRAP produced molecular markers from two populations, Old Penitentiary (#27) and Road to 3 Mile Creek (#33), indicated that and assigned a shape description (Figure 4). The bulbs were then stored at the Western Regional Plant differences in genetic variation can be determined using both individual plant DNA extraction and bulks of tissue from populations. We are Introduction Station in a temperature-controlled room at 15 C. A total of 3,107 A. acuminatum bulbs were currently working in the lab to run a bulked sample of 20 randomly selected individuals from each population to characterizegen etic sampled throughout Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. differences among the 55 populations collected. Average bulb diameter was 1.0 cm with a standard deviation of 0.2 cm for the entire collection. The These data along with measurements of genotypic variation from our common garden studies will be used to identify key populations for maximum bulb diameter was 2.1 cm and minimum diameter was 0.3 cm, and the maximum and minimum in-situ and ex-situ conservation sites and to delineate seed transfer zones for future restoration projects. site means were 1.2 and 0.9 cm, respectively. Of the bulbs collected, 91% were single bulbs, 8.7% were cloved bulbs, and 0.2% were 3-cloved bulbs. Most of the bulbs were globed shaped (90.3%), 6.8% were Figure 4. Bulb morphology. (A) Single, globed (B) cloved (C) Three-cloved classified as flat globe, and 1.9% high-globe. (D) High-globed (E) Flat-globed. Analysis of bulb diameter at the 55 collections sites indicated a significant difference among collection sites Level 4 Ecoregion Collection sites (F= 10.2, p < 0.05), however, this analysis cannot separate the specific environmental and genetic factors Semiarid Hills and Low Mountains 1 related to bulb size. Despite statistical differences, the general uniformity in bulb size and morphology was Southern Forested Mtns/Dry Partly Wooded Mtns 1 striking given the large area and diversity of environmental conditions from which samples were collected. Mountain Home Uplands 1 Southern Forested Mountains 1 Collection site coordinates were entered into a GIS database and a 30 -meter radius from the A. acuminatum Pluvial Lake Basins 1 population was compared to Level III and IV ecoregions as described by Omernick (1987). This analysis High Desert Wetlands 1 showed A. acuminatum populations were collected from 20 Level IV ecoregions (Table 1). Dissected High Continental Zone Foothills 1 Lava Plateau was the most common ecoregion representing 24% of the 55 sites.