Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

ALLELOPATHIC INTERFERENCE OF WEEDS ON RICEGERMINATION

P.N. Dongre and Balram Prasad Yadav

Abstract

In an in vitro study, effect of different weed leaf leachates on average seed germination and root length intwo varieties of rice, viz., Nati Mansuri and Sonam was estimated at different leachate concentrations. Theselected 12weed species included Caesuliaaxillaris, Chenopodium album, Commelinabenghalensis, Cyperusdifformis, Cyperus rotundus, Cyperus squarrosus, Echinochloa crus-galli, Eclipta alba, Lathyrus aphaca, Melilotusindica, Parthenium hysterophorus and Panicum frumentaceae. The leaf leachates of nearly all the test weedswere found to have inhibitory effects on percent germination, shoot length and root length of both the testcultivars of rice at different concentrations. The inhibitory response was found to be positively correlatedwith the leachate concentration and in most cases of test cultivar-weed interactions, statistically significantdecrease in percent germination, shoot length and root length was observed at 15% treatment level in alltreatments.