Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDY OF DIVERSITY AND SPECIES RICHNESS OF WEED FLORA IN LARGE CARDAMOM (AMOMUM SUBULATUM ROXB.) PLANTATIONS AT SIKKIM

P. Chhetri, B.A. Gudade, S. Moktan, N.K. Bhattarai and U. Gupta

Abstract

The present study was carried out in 2012-13 at two different sites of the cardamom plantation field, Kabi and Pangthang under North and East district of the state of Sikkim. Weed composition may vary because of natural environment, management practices and their interaction. In this study we presented a diversity of different weed flora in large cardamom plantation field at two different sites. Altogether 22 genera belonging to 16 different families were identified with Urticaceae as the dominant family over other families. Most of the weeds were found to be perennial in their growth form. In both the sites the most dominant weed was Persicaria runcinata followed by Galinsoga parviflora. The species diversity showed value of 3.066 followed by species richness of 0.682 and the concentration of dominance was calculated to be 0.051.