A grazing study was initiated in April 2000 and continued through three calving and weaning cycles (ending July 2003) to investigate the effects of rotational grazing management (twice monthly [2M] vs. twice weekly [2W]) and weaning date (mid-April [EARLY] vs. early June [LATE]) on production of fall-calving cow-calf pairs (495 +/- 9.6 kg initial BW) grazing Neotyphodium coenophialum-infected t...

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea, Shreb.) is the predominant cool-season, perennial grass in the eastern half of the United States, and the majority is infected with the endemic endophyte (E+) Neotyphodium coenophialum, resulting in millions of dollars in revenues lost to the beef industry. Endophyte-free (E-) tall fescue was initially tapped as a "silver bullet" for the solution to fescue toxi...

Genetic diversity of fungal endophytes, Neotyphodium species, was studied in grasses Festuca arundinacea, F. pratensis and Lolium perenne using AFLP  markers. Fungi were isolated from the host leaf sheaths and Neotyphodium species were selected based on morphological characteristics. To confirm identity of selected fungi belonging to the genus Neotyphodium, polymerase chain reaction was perform...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Temperate endophyte-infected (Neotyphodium sp.) grasses have been shown to exhibit an ecological advantage over endophyte-uninfected grasses under abiotic stressful conditions. It is predicted that endophyte-infected plant populations will display higher rates of germination and proportion of germinated seeds under limiting water conditions. METHODS The hydrotime regressio...

The lpsA gene, a late acting gene in the biosynthetic pathway of ergovaline, a suspected causative agent for fescue toxicosis in cattle, has been cloned from Neotyphodium lolii, an endophytic fungus of Lolium perenne. In this study, a similar gene was detected in several strains of endophytic Neotyphodium spp. isolated from grass hosts endogenous to Iran using direct and nested-PCR assays. Exce...

Persistence and ubiquity of vertically transmitted Neotyphodium endophytes in grass populations is puzzling because infected plants do not consistently exhibit increased fitness. Using an annual grass population model, we show that the problems for matching endophyte infection and mutualism are likely to arise from difficulties in detecting small mutualistic effects, variability in endophyte tr...

on tall fescue pastures (West et al., 1988; Clay, 1993; Siegel and Bush, 1996), as well as controlling plant disTall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is an important cooleases (Latch, 1997). A variety of alkaloids, N-containing season perennial forage naturally infected with an endophyte, Neotyphodium coenophialum Glenn, Bacon, & Hanlin, which produces ring structures, are produced in the t...

Neotyphodium endophytic fungi, the asexual state of Epichloë species, protect cool-season grasses against stresses. The outcomes of Neotyphodium-grass symbioses are agronomically relevant as they may affect the productivity of pastures. It has been suggested that the mutualism is characteristic of agronomic grasses and that differential rates of gene flow between both partners' populations are ...