Mucilage secretion: an adaptive mechanism to reduce seed removal by soil erosion?

Biopolymer additives to reduce erosion-induced soil losses during irrigation

A series of biopolymers added to irrigation water were tested for their efficacy in reducing shear-induced erosion in a laboratory-scale mini-furrow. Suspensions of chitosan, starch xanthate, cellulose xanthate, and acid-hydrolyzed cellulose microfibrils, at concentrations of 20, 80, 80, and 120 ppm, respectively, reduced suspended solids by more than 80%. None of these biopolymers, however, ex...

1 Soil erosion shapes vegetation composition through seed removal susceptibility 1 2

Ccxcvi. Cress Seed Mucilage

THE dispersed cellulose component which is found in white mustard seed mucilage [Bailey and Norris, 1932] and in quince seed mucilage [Schmidt, 1844; Kirchner and Tollens, 1874; Renfrew and Cretcher, 1932] has now been obtained from the mucilage of cress seed, Lepidium sativum. The present communication, which deals mainly with the chemistry of this seed mucilage, falls into three sections: (1)...

Effective extraction of Arabidopsis adherent seed mucilage by ultrasonic treatment

The Arabidopsis seed coat is composed of two layers of mucilage, a water-soluble non-adherent outer layer and an adherent inner layer. The non-adherent mucilage can easily be extracted by gentle shaking. However, adherent mucilage is extremely difficult to dissociate from the seed coat. Despite various treatments to extract the adherent mucilage, including EDTA, ammonium oxalate, dilute alkali ...

Dissecting Seed Mucilage Adherence Mediated by FEI2 and SOS5

The plant cell wall is held together by the interactions between four major components: cellulose, pectin, hemicellulose, and proteins. Mucilage is a powerful model system to study the interactions between these components as it is formed of polysaccharides that are deposited in the apoplast of seed coat epidermal cells during seed development. When seeds are hydrated, these polysaccharides exp...