PJB-2019-801
EXPLORING BIO-HERBICIDAL POTENTIAL OF NATURAL FLORA AGAINST GERMINATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH OF Sorghum halepense
Muhammad Ehsan Safdar
Abstract
Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. is a noxious weed of cropped and non-cropped areas of Pakistan due to its persistent, competitive and allelopathic behavior. To find out allelopathic means of controlling this weed, repeated petri-plate based germination bioassay and soil-filled pot-based seedling bioassay studies were conducted under laboratory and wire house conditions, respectively. The results revealed that all extracts significantly reduced the germination and seedling growth of S. halepense. However, among all plants, 10% water extracts of C. album and C. procera in combination with D. stramonium had the strongest pre-emergence herbicidal potential by producing maximum reductions in germination percentage (up to 96%), shoot length (up to 85%), root length (up to 74%) and seedling vigor index (up to 99%) of S. halepense. However, in seedling bioassay, foliar spray of 10% water extracts of A. aspera and C. procera along with D. stramonium were proved to have the highest post-emergence phytotoxic ability by causing the highest decrease in shoot length (up to 67%), root length (up to 61%), shoot fresh weight (up to 90%) and root fresh weight (up to 72%) of S. halepense. According to HPLC analysis of plant water extracts, the greater phytotoxicity of D. stramonium, C. procera, C. album and A. aspera extracts was proved to be due to their higher allelopathic compounds composition including quercertin (0.66, 0.64, 0.32 and 0 mg L-1), gallic acid (0, 3.20, 0 and 16.85 mg L-1), chlorogenic acid (9.44, 8.12, 4.52 and 0 mg L-1), p-coumaric acid (0, 1.78, 0 and 0 mg L-1), sinapinic acid (2.03, 5.54, 0 and 0 mg L-1), m-coumaric acid (0, 0, 0.93 and 3.13 mg L-1), caffeic acid (6.67, 0, 0 and 7.41 mg L-1), benzoic acid (10.16, 0, 0 and 24.7 mg L-1) and syringic acid (0, 0, 1.92 and 9.21 mg L-1), respectively.
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