Plant leachate bioassay for allelopathy testing (Poaceae)

Knowledge graph centered on Plant leachate bioassay for allelopathy testing (Poaceae) with 28 nodes and 103 connections. Top connected: Ligusticum porteri, Boechera stricta, Festuca, native species, Brassica.

Method synopsis

A controlled greenhouse experiment using plant leachates prepared by running deionized water through pots containing treatment species, then applying these leachates to test plants to evaluate allelopathic effects on growth and survival.

Synthesized from method descriptions across 1 paper using this protocol.

Procedure from a recent peer-reviewed implementation

Steps below were extracted from the most recent peer-reviewed implementation of this protocol in the corpus — Intraspecific Variation in Responses of a Montane Grass, <i> Festuca thurberi </i>, to Simulated Biological Invasion (2022), Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Implementations in other papers (listed below) may differ.

1. Collect treatment plants for leachate preparation
   Treatment plants (T. arvense, N. fendleri, and F. thurberi) were collected from similar elevation for field station (~2,889 m), with the exception of F. thurberi treatment plants collected from the same site as experimental plants (~3,826 m).
   Quantities: Three replicates of three plants per pot transplanted into 5 L pots for each treatmentDuration: Single collection eventConditions: Field sites at ~2,889 m elevation (except F. thurberi at ~3,826 m)
   Equipment: 5 L pots
2. Prepare leachate solutions
   Leachate was collected separately for each replicate of each species, following design by Hagan et al. (2013) by running 1.3 L of DI water through a pot until roughly 1 L of leachate had been collected. Each of the three, 5 L treatment plant pots, was used to extract leachate successively to water the experimental plants.
   Quantities: 1.3 L DI water input, ~1 L leachate collected per extraction, 3 replicate pots per treatmentDuration: Successive extractions every other day or every third day for 51 daysConditions: Controlled conditions to determine if root exudates are responsible for treatment effect
   Equipment: deionized water
3. Apply treatments and monitor growth
   Experimental plants were watered with treatment leachate or control DI water until liquid started to pool at surface of individual cells every other day or every third day depending on how long cells took to dry out. New growth assessed every 10 days and marked as either new growth present (1) or absent (0). Mortality assessed twice at 15 and 30 days after transplant and marked as either above ground green biomass absent (1) or present (0).

Typical Equipment

• 5 L pots
• deionized water
• Spad 502 (Minolta)
• 38-cell propagation trays

Output Measurements

• new growth presence/absence
• mortality
• relative greenness
• total biomass

Papers Using This Protocol (1)

Species Studied With This Protocol