Effects of human-mediated processes on weed species composition in internationally traded grain commodities

International trade is a major route by which non-indigenous organisms are introduced into new habitats. Various kinds of weed seeds have been introduced through grain trade. The objectives of this study were to understand the factors that affect the initial assemblage of plant species introduced by the international grain trade and to extract their general attributes. We surveyed weed seed contamination of spring wheat imported from Canada to Japan and analysed the effects of the field abundance of each weed and of harvesting and cleaning on the quantity of weed seed included in the imported wheat. The field abundance was positively correlated with the weed seed quantity. Seeds of short weeds and seeds with a pappus were eliminated from the wheat by the harvesting or cleaning process. Many other crop plants contaminated the wheat. Because various transportation vehicles, temporary storage sites and port elevators are used commonly with all exported crops and it is difficult to remove all residues from them, other crops might be carried over into the wheat commodity. These relationships also apply to other grains.