Spatial Relationships between Soil Seed Bank and Seedling Populations of Hordeum spontaneum and Cardaria draba in Saffron Fields

Geostatistical techniques were used to characterize the spatial relationship between Hordeum spontaneum and Cardaria draba seedling and soil seed bank over the entire growing season of 2004-2005 in three saffron (Crocus sativus L.) fields, located in Southern Khorasan (33° North latitude, 57° East longitude), Iran. The maps of H. spontaneum seed bank density corresponded moderately to those seedling density in a and strongly to those in b and c fields. The emergence percentage of Cardaria draba was higher than for H. spontaneum in all fields. Semivariograms showed spatial autocorrelation in seed bank and seedling populations of H. spontaneum and C. draba in all fields. Grey-scale field maps of C. draba seed banks corresponded visually to maps of seedling populations and could have been used to target control efforts, but visual correspondence between H. spontaneum seed bank and seedling maps was poor.

Keywords:

Crocus sativus , geostatistics , spatial dependence , spatial pattern , weeds map