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SEED BANK OF SUMMER WEEDS IN WHEAT FIELDS OF DIFFERENT RAINFALL ZONES OF PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

SHAHIDA NAEEM, RUBINA RAFIQ¹, RASHID A. SHAD² AND TAHIRA AHMAD³

Abstract: The soil seed reserves of different summer weeds were studied in the fields of different rainfall zones of Punjab, Pakistan. Composite soil samples collected from fields comprising of very low (150-300 mm), low (300-500 mm), medium, (500-1000 mm) and high (1000-1500 mm) annual rainfall areas were kept in trays of uniform size in the green house at National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad. An environmental condition was provided for germination of weed seeds. Seedlings emerging over a period of three years were identified, recorded and removed at intervals. The seed reserves of different zones differed from each other in tenus of weed seed composition, seed number by species and total number of seeds in the soil. The species diversity and number of seeds in the soil remained lowest in very low rainfall area. With the increase in annual rainfall, both the parameters also increased with highest values in the high annual rainfall area.

Department of Basic Sciences, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
National Herbarium, NARC, Islamabad.
Technology Transfer Unit, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad.
Department of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.