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Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture
Volume 41, 2001 © CSIRO 2001
. . . a journal publishing papers at the cutting edge of applied agricultural research
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Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture, 2001, 41, 1199–1205
Effects of the concentration of manganese in the seed in alleviating manganese deficiency of Lupinus angustifolius L. R. F. BrennanA and N. E LongneckerB AAgriculture Western Australia, Albany
Regional Office, Albany, WA 6330, Australia; e-mail:
[email protected] BCentre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
Abstract. Low concentration of manganese in the seed of narrow-leafed sweet lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) decreased both the germination of seedlings and grain yield. In lupin, the grain yield obtained from seeds with increasing the manganese concentration planted on manganese-deficient soils could not reach grain yields on the maximum yield plateau reached by applying fertiliser manganese or minimise the amount of split seed. Consequently, in lupin for maximum grain yield and minimum amounts of split seed, both adequate manganese in seed and fertiliser manganese are required on manganese-deficient soils. Introduction Manganese (Mn) deficiency in narrow-leafed sweet Lupinus angustifolius L. (hereafter called lupin) causes the seed disorder called split seed in the developing pods (Walton and Francis 1975; Perry and Gartrell 1976; Hocking et al. 1977). Plants with Mn deficiency remained green at maturity and the seeds in developing pods were split (Perry and Gartrell 1976). Low-alkaloid cultivars of L. angustifolius are particularly sensitive to Mn deficiency (Walton and Francis 1975) because of their apparent greater functional requirements for Mn than high-alkaloid cultivars (Radjagukguk 1980). For lupin grown in the field, Mn deficiency is not usually observed in the vegetative stage and dry matter production of the lupin shoots is not usually affected (Brennan 1999). However, lupin seed (grain) yield can be reduced by more than half compared with lupin plants adequately supplied with Mn fertiliser (Perry and Gartrell 1976; Brennan 1999). About 75% of the soils of the agricultural areas of south-western Australia are sandy at the surface, acidic to neutral and suitable for growing lupin. Many of these soils are Mn-deficient for producing profitable lupin grain (Perry and Gartrell 1976). The concentrations of Mn in seed of lupin produced in WA are very low, often
