Evaluation of Seeds of Four Species of Native Legumes for Potential Establishment Using Bovine Fecal Seeding.

On land that can't be seeded with a seed drill for physical or economic reasons and for seed that does not establish well with broadcast seeding it could be useful if plants could be established using cattle and fecal seeding.  Therefore, seed of Canada milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis), groundplum milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus), northern sweetvetch (Hedysarum boreale) and white prairie clover (Dalea candida) were evaluated with an in vitro process to determine if a large percentage of each seed type have potential to pass through the bovine gastrointestinal (GUT) environment and germinate.  After 24 or 48 hr in a simulated bovine GUT environment, 29 and 13% of Canada milkvetch seed germinated, respectively, 5 and 2% of groundplum milkvetch seed germinated, respectively, 53 and 37% of northern sweetvetch seed germinated, respectively, and 5 and 3% of white prairie clover seed germinated, respectively.  The seed of Canada milkvetch and northern sweetvetch may have good potential for seed establishment via bovine fecal seeding, but white prairie clover seed probably does not.  Seed of groundplum milkvetch may need to spend more time in the bovine GUT environment for greater scarification of its hard seed coat before a greater number of its seeds could germinate and grow in cattle dung.