Relative Resistance of Ornamental Flowering Bulbs to Feeding Damage by Voles

摘要: Many plants have mechanisms of physical or chemical resistance that protect them from herbivores in their environment. Vertebrates such as meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) cause significant damage to ornamental plantings and home gardens. Our goal was identify flowering bulbs could be used design more herbivore-resistant landscapes. Single-choice feeding trials with captive prairie ochrogaster) were assess the relative 30 bulb varieties deter rodents consuming fresh plant material freeze-dried, powdered mixed a preferred food (applesauce). Each dried-bulb/applesauce mix offered twice 12 15 pairs adult voles. Bulb resulted lowest mean consumption assumed most resistant activity. With bulbs, only tulips (Tulipa spp.) exhibited no vole feeding. Dried-bulb/applesauce mixes containing hyacinth (Hyacinth spp.), crocus (Crocus corn leaf iris (Iris bucharica), dutch dwarf reticulata), onion (Allium squill (Scilla siberica) also readily consumed, thus, these damaged at sites high rodent Daffodil (Narcissus painted arum (Arum italicum), camass (Camassia leichtlinii), glory-of-the-snow (Chinodoxa forbesii), autumn (Colchicum crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), persian fritillaria persica), snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), grape (Muscari armeniacum) both forms (fresh mixes). Consequently, all specialty flower tested, except tulip, some form, suitable for designing