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Project Leader: Leslie A. Weston, Department of Horticulture,
Cornell University
Project Cooperators: Cecile Bertin, graduate student in Horticulture;
Andrew F. Senesac, extension educator, Long Island Horticultural Research
and Extension Center, Riverhead NY; Dr. Frank Rossi, turf specialist,
Department of Horticulture; Peder Weibull, Swalof Weibul Seed Company,
Sweden.
Type of Grant: Alternative Pest Management Strategies, Pest
Resistant Crops
Project Locations: Ithaca NY; Riverhead NY; Swalof, Sweden.
Abstract:
Recent experiments in Ithaca and Riverhead NY have shown that fine
fescue cultivars Intrigue, Reliant and Oxford were most suppressive
in field and laboratory settings due to their allelopathic activity
and their ability to establish readily in a field setting. The cultivars
Treasure and Boreal were least weed suppressive in both sites in 2 years
of replicated trials. Mode of action studies would suggest the inhibitor(s)
in the root exudate act upon photosynthesis or respiration or possibly
both. Current anatomical studies suggest root exudates are produced
in actively dividing root cells and are stored until extrusion from
roots in osmiophilic inclusions in root cells. The structural elucidation
studies performed using GC and HPLC coupled to mass spectrometry suggest
that the components of the root exudates may be steroidal in nature.
Purification and structural elucidation work is ongoing.
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