ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Muhammad Ashfaq1 , Amna Ali1, Muhammad Saleem Haider1, Muhammad Ali1, Asad Ullah2, Urooj Mubashar3, Husnain Mubashar3, Iqra Saleem1 and Muhammad Sajjad4
1Institute of Agricultural Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.
2Faculty of Agriculture, University of the Sargodha, Pakistan.
3Government Elementary Teachers Education College Ghakkhar Mandi, Gujranwala, Pakistan.
4Center for Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture,
Faisalabd, Pakistan.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2014;8(Spl. Edn. 2):573-580
© The Author(s). 2014
Received: 10/08/2014 | Accepted: 21/10/2014 | Published: 30/11/2014
Abstract

Selection of weeds with greater allelopathic potential can be used as a tool in sustainable crop production. The study aims at exploring the allelopathic effects of four weed species on seed germination of the test crop (O. sativa L). Four weed species used are namely, Cyperus esculentus (Della), Axonopus compressus (Itsit), Convulvulus arvensis (Lehli) and Parthenium hysterophorus (Parthenium). A laboratory experiment using completely randomized design was conducted on ten local and exotic varieties of O. sativa by using filter-paper bioassay technique. The crude extracts were prepared in ethanol solvents (10:100 w/v) and was further used in germination experiments. Ten days old rice seedlings (including A. compressus + C. arvensis and C. esculentus + P. hysterophorus) were observed after treatments with crude extracts of weed leaves. A comparative study of the seedlings was conducted with control sets treated with distilled water. Germination % age was observed at an interval of 24hr up to 8 days and expressed as % seed germination. The interaction between C. esculentus + P. hysterophorus indicated a significant effect on germination rate, plumule length, radicle length, fresh weight and dry weight of seeds. Results showed that allelopathic effects caused a significant increase among rice varieties: Munji 220 (96%), Sabina (84%) and Gulfmonth (80%). Conversely, the seedling growth of Basmati 370, CB-42, B. Pak and B. 802 rice varieties were least effected by weed extracts as compare to control. Pre sowing soaking by weed extracts proved to be the most effective to germination and seedling growth of rice. The overall results indicated the possible supportive effect of allelo-chemicals present in tested weeds on rice seeds.

Keywords

Oryza sativa seeds, allelopathy, germination, seedling growth, weed extracts

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© The Author(s) 2014. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.