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Abstract

Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. is a noxious weed of crop lands in 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 outcomes of studies showed that plant extracts caused significant reduction in S. halepense growth and germination. Among the extracts used, 10% (w/v) 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 (67%), root length (61%), and shoot fresh weight (90%) of S. halepense. According to HPLC analysis of plant water extracts, the greater phytotoxicity of D. stramonium, C. procera, A. aspera and C. album extracts might be attributed to their higher allelochemicals’ composition including quercertin (0.66, 0.64, 0.32 and 0), gallic acid (0, 3.20, 0 and 16.85), chlorogenic acid (9.44, 8.12, 4.52 and 0), p-coumaric acid (0, 1.78, 0 and 0), sinapinic acid (2.03, 5.54, 0 and 0), m-coumaric acid (0, 0, 0.93 and 3.13), caffeic acid (6.67, 0, 0 and 7.41), benzoic acid (10.16, 0, 0 and 24.7) and syringic acid (0, 0, 1.92 and 9.21 mg L-1), respectively

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