Glyphosate resistance was found in a rigid ryegrass population in northern California. A sample of the resistant plants were collected and grown under greenhouse conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate glyphosate resistance in the progeny of the collected plants by recurrent selection, obtain the homozygous resistant and sensitive lines to establish dose-response curves, and to determine the inheritance of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass. Diverse levels of resistance were observed in the first generation with survival of 89, 59, 45, and 9% from glyphosate at 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x respectively, where x = 1.12 kg ha⁻¹ isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Clones of plants that died from 1x were allowed to produce seed and were further subjected to recurrent selection to generate the most sensitive plants (S lines), which died from 0.125x glyphosate. The most resistant plants (R lines) were generated from the survivors receiving 8x glyphosate. The ratio between I₅₀ rates for the glyphosate resistant and the glyphosate sensitive plants was > 100-fold. The R and S lines were crossed reciprocally and F₁ progeny of both (R × S) and (S × R) showed intermediate resistance. These survived up to 2x glyphosate. The F₂ progeny were generated by intercrossing of F₁ plants. The ratio of sensitive, intermediate, and resistant plants in the F₂ population before the treatment of glyphosate at 0.125x followed by 8x was 1 : 16, 14 : 16, and 1 : 16 respectively, which corresponded to the Mendelian segregation ratio of two genes. The results indicated that the inheritance of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass from California appeared to be nuclear, incompletely dominant, multigenic, and pollen-transmitted with no indication of maternal inheritance.

Nomenclature: Glyphosate; rigid ryegrass, Lolium rigidum Gaud. LOLRI.