Evaluation location: Washington, United States
Festuca seed chosen for this endophtye longevity study were from the first regenerated seed lots of E+ tall fescue accessions collected during a 1994 Australian-U.S. plant exploration trip to Mediterranean locations (Cunningham, 1996; Cunningham et al., 1997) and stored in the Pullman seed bank (Clement et al., 2001). These collective results suggest that viable endophyte is retained with current seed-regeneration practices at the Pullman PI Station. This study also documented viable Neotyphodium infection frequencies (16-100%) in plants grown from seed of 20 additional Mediterranean tall fescue accessions stored for four to ten years in the Pullman seed bank. For some of these accessions, low post-storage infection frequencies, in comparison with their high initial viability levels, suggested a decline in endophyte viability during seed storage. Additional evidence for diminishing endophyte viability levels in some accessions was provided by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), immunoblot, and microscopic seed assays.
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