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BACKGROUND Weeds can be a greater constraint to crop production than animal pests and pathogens. Pre-emergence herbicides are crucial in many cropping systems to control weeds that have evolved resistance to selective post-emergence herbicides. In this study we assessed the potential to evolve resistance to the pre-emergence herbicides prosulfocarb + S-metolachlor or pyroxasulfone in 50 individual field Lolium rigidum populations collected in a random survey in Western Australia prior to commercialisation of these pre-emergence herbicides. RESULTS This study shows for the first time that in randomly collected L. rigidum field populations the selection with either prosulfocarb + S-metolachlor or pyroxasulfone can result in concomitant evolution of resistance to both prosulfocarb + S-metolachlor and pyroxasulfone after three generations. CONCLUSIONS In the major weed L. rigidum, traits conferring resistance to new herbicides can be present before herbicide commercialisation. Proactive and multidisciplinary research (evolutionary ecology, modelling and molecular biology) is required to detect and analyse resistant populations before they can appear in the field. Several studies show that evolved cross-resistance in weeds is complex and often unpredictable. Thus, long-term management of cross-resistant weeds must be achieved through heterogeneity of selection by effective chemical, cultural and physical weed control strategies that can delay herbicide resistance evolution. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND When applied at the correct plant stage and dose, herbicides are highly toxic to plants. At reduced, low herbicide doses (below the recommended dose) plants can survive and display continuous and quantitative variation in dose-survival responses. Recurrent (directional) selection studies can reveal whether such a phenotypic variation in plant survival response to low herbicide dose is heritable and leads to herbicide resistance. In a common experimental garden study, we have subjected a susceptible population of self-pollinated hexaploid Avena fatua to low-dose recurrent selection with the ACCase-inhibiting herbicide diclofop-methyl for three consecutive generations. RESULTS Significant differences in response to low-dose diclofop-methyl selection were observed between the selected progenies and parent plants, with a twofold diclofop-methyl resistance and cross-resistance to ALS-inhibiting herbicides. Thus, the capacity of self-pollinated A. fatua to respond to low-dose herbicide selection is marginal, and it is much lower than in cross-pollinated L. rigidum. Lolium rigidum in the same experiment evolved 40-fold diclofop-methyl resistance by progressive enrichment of quantitative resistance-endowing traits. CONCLUSION Cross-pollination rate, genetic variation and ploidy levels are identified as possible drivers affecting the contrasting capacity of Avena versus Lolium plants to respond to herbicide selection and the subsequent likelihood of resistance evolution at low herbicide dose usage. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Lolium rigidum populations in Australia and globally have demonstrated rapid and widespread evolution of resistance to acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase ( ACCase)-inhibiting and acetolactate synthase ( ALS)-inhibiting herbicides. Thirty-three resistant L. rigidum populations, randomly collected from crop fields in a most recent resistance survey, were analysed for non-target-site diclofop metabolism and all known target-site ACCase gene resistance-endowing mutations. RESULTS The HPLC profile of [ 14C]-diclofop-methyl in vivo metabolism revealed that 79% of these resistant L. rigidum populations showed enhanced capacity for diclofop acid metabolism (metabolic resistance). ACCase gene sequencing identified that 91% of the populations contain plants with ACCase resistance mutation(s). Importantly, 70% of the populations exhibit both non-target-site metabolic resistance and target-site ACCase mutations. CONCLUSIONS This work demonstrates that metabolic herbicide resistance is commonly occurring in L. rigidum, and coevolution of both metabolic resistance and target-site resistance is an evolutionary reality. Metabolic herbicide resistance can potentially endow resistance to many herbicides and poses a threat to herbicide sustainability and thus crop production, calling for major research and management efforts. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND This study confirms and characterises glyphosate resistance in two polyploid Echinochloa colona populations from north-eastern Australia. RESULTS Glyphosate dose response revealed that the two resistant populations were marginally (up to twofold) resistant to glyphosate. Resistant plants did not differ in non-target-site foliar uptake and translocation of 14C-glyphosate, but contained the known target-site 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase ( EPSPS) mutation Pro-106-Thr and/or Pro-106-Leu. Although plants carrying either a single or two EPSPS mutations were glyphosate resistant relative to the susceptible population, they were still controlled at the field rate of glyphosate (450 g a.e. ha−1) when treated under warm conditions (25/20 °C). However, when treated in hot conditions (35/30 °C), most mutant resistant plants (68%) can survive the field rate, and an increase (2.5-fold) in glyphosate LD50 was found for both the R and S populations. CONCLUSIONS This study shows that one or two EPSPS Pro-106 mutations are insufficient to confer field-rate glyphosate resistance in polyploidy E. colona at mild temperatures. However, control of these mutant plants at the glyphosate field rate is poor at high temperatures, probably owing to reduced glyphosate efficacy. Therefore, glyphosate should be applied during relatively mild (warm) temperature periods in the summer growing season to improve E. colona control. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: A population of Echinochloa colona infesting agricultural fields in the northern region of Western Australia evolved glyphosate resistance after 10 years of glyphosate selection. This study identified two phenotypic (susceptible S versus resistant R) lines from within a segregating glyphosate-resistant population. Estimation of survival, growth and reproductive rates of the phenotypes in response to glyphosate selection helped to characterise the level of resistance, fitness and the selection intensity for glyphosate in this species. RESULTS: Estimations of LD50 (lethal dose) and GR50 (growth rate) showed an eightfold glyphosate resistance in this population. The resistant index based on the estimation of seed number (SYn50) showed a 13-fold resistance. As a result of linear combination of plant survival and fecundity rates, plant fitness values of 0.2 and 0.8 were estimated for the S and R phenotypeswhen exposed to the low dose of 270 g glyphosate ha-1. At the recommended dose of 540 g glyphosate ha-1, fitness significantly decreased (fivefold) in S plants but remained markedly similar (0.7) in plants of the R phenotype. Thus, the calculated selection intensity (SI) at 540 g glyphosate ha-1 was much greater (SI = 17) than at 270 g glyphosate ha-1 (SI = 4). CONCLUSIONS: The assessment of plant survival and fecundity in response to glyphosate selection in the S and R phenotypes allowed a greater accuracy in the estimation of population fitness of both phenotypes and thus of glyphosate selection intensity in E. colona. The estimation of seed number or mass of phenotypes under herbicide selection is a true ecological measure of resistance with implications for herbicide resistance evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]