Seed Filter Extractor: A new instrument for the evaluation of weed seedbank

•Seed extraction from the soil is the most onerous phase in the seedbank evaluation.•Description and scientific validation of the “Seed Filter Extractor” were reported.•“SFE” and “seed germination method” gave similar estimates of weed seedbank.•SFE is an instrument characterized by high accuracy and good working capacity.•SFE has not a patent, but the authors possess the authorship of its working principle.

The extraction of seeds from the soil, their identification and quantification represents the most difficult and onerous working phases in the study of the weed seedbank. There are two usual techniques for evaluation of weed seedbank: “the seed extraction method” and “the seed germination method”. The seed extraction method is more rapid than the seed germination method, although could be less accurate due to losses or to the break up of seeds, depending of the instrument used during the separation phase. The Seed Filter Extractor (SFE) was realized at the Experimental Station of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences of the University of Perugia and in this work, it was described and validated through experimental trials. SFE is made up of three filtering elements positioned in parallel, in each of which a sample of soil is placed for the extraction of seeds. Two experimental trials were realized: the first experiment has compared the seed extraction method using the SFE with the seed germination method; the second experiment was carried out using 15 identical test samples, manually prepared mixing up 0.65 kg of quartz sand and 50 seeds of each of five weed species, for a total of 250 seeds per sample. The samples were processed by SFE in order to separate seeds and evaluate the SFE’s accuracy. Significant differences were not obtained between the SFE and the seed germination method in the results of weed seedbank evaluation. The SFE showed to have a high accuracy (98.6% of recover capacity of seeds) with a good working capacity (about 40 samples per hour). This work allowed to describe and to validate the SFE in order to make possible its use in all the scientific experiments where the evaluation of weed seedbank is involved. The authors would like to point out that the SFE is not covered by patent; however, with this work they will have the possibility to lay claim to the scientific authorship of the idea and the working principle in the future.