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Environment & Ecology 32 (1A) : 201205, JanuaryMarch 2014

Website : environmentandecology.com ISSN 0970-0420
Nutrient Content of Transplanted Rice Increase by Controlling
Weed Through Xanthium strumarium Extracts
P. K. Upadhyay, E. Kumari, A. Sen,
S. K. Choudhary, R. K. Singh
Received 23 September 2013; Accepted 24 October 2013; Published online 31 October 2013
Abstract To minimize problem of herbicide resis-
tance as well as soil and water pollution, plant prod-
ucts and plant residues are used for management of
weeds because various types of allelochemicals have
been found to possess capacity to control weeds and
also improve or maintain soil productivity. Due to pres-
ence of several allelochemical Xanthium strumarium
extract has been used as a pre emergence herbicide
which reduces the population of weeds and enhances
the nutrients content in the plants. It was found that
application of petroleum ether extract of X. Strumarium
@ 2000 and 3000 mg l
-1
cause significant reduction in
the population of weeds which helps in reducing the
crop-weed competition for nutrient applied for the
crop (rice variety HUBR 2-1) as compared to control
plot and at par with Anilophos a well known herbi-
cide for controllling weeds in transplanted rice.
Keywords Nutrient content, Herbicide, Petroblem
ether.
Introduction
Throughout history, rice remains a staple food for
two-thirds of the worlds population, especially for
south-eastern Asia, where 90% of the world produc-
tion of rice is grown and consumed and has become
an item of commerce since the last two decades. About
four-fifths of the worlds rice are produced by small-
scale farmers and are consumed locally. The slogan
Rice is life is most appropriate for the country as
the crop plays a vital role in national food security
providing about two third calories to the people in
humid and sub humid Asia. It is grown 112 counties
in world, covering every contrinent, every continent,
and is consumed by 2500 million people in develop-
ing countries. Among cereals rice is the major source
of calories for about 40% of the world population and
every third person on earth eats rice every day in one
form or other (1).
Since the weeds are the main enemies of the cul-
tivated paddy crop, it should be eliminated in proper
time. Hand weeding, which is in practice, is very ef-
fective if followed in time, though it is tedious, time
consuming and costly. Moreover, presently labor
availability of such operation has decreased due to
rapid industrialization, increased literacy and migra-
tion of labor to urban areas. Weeds are naturally
grown plant which are able to extract nutrients and
water from the soil and are competent enough to har-
vest light energy. In the growing plants, leaf area in-
dex and root density increase which leads to matual
interfernce in the utilization of growth factors. The
population of weeds crossing over threahold level
P. K. Upadhyay*, E. Kumari, A. Sen, S. K. Choudhary,
R. K. Singh
Department of Agronomy, Institute of Agricultural
Sciences, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi 221005, India
e-mail: pravin.ndu@gmail.com
*Correspondence
202
increases the competition for growth factors result-
ing in reduction of crop production. The weed and
crop compete for such common growth factors whose
availability is less. Naturally grown weeds absorb more
nutrients from the soil than the crop. In the begin-
ning of the crop growth, weeds absorb excess nutri-
ents because majority of the annual weeds compete
its life cycle within 50-60 days whereas the crops take-
100-130 days. crop and weeds require nutrients im-
mediately after germination and emergence. Weeds
usually absorb mineral nutrients faster than many of
the crop plants and accumulated them in their tissues
in relatively larger amount and therefore, derive greater
benefit (2). Among the plant nutrients, Nitrogen, phos-
phorus and potassium are limiting ones and among
them nitrogen is the first nutrient to become limiting
due to crop weeds competion (3). Nitrogen depletion
znes are likely wider and similar to those of water. In
order to minimize problem of nutrient depletion by
weed the management of weeds are necessary. Ap-
plication of Xanthium strumarium extract as pre-emer-
gence herbicide help in reducing the weed popula-
tion and field became free so the nutrient removal by
crop increasd.
Xanthium strumarium is a cocklebur or burweed
commonly found as a weed in roadsides, rice fields,
and hedges throughout the tropical parts of India.
The word Xanthium is derived from an ancient Greek
word xanthos meaning yellow and strumarium
means cushionlike swelling, with reference to the
seed pods which turn green to yellow as they ripen
(later they become deep yellow to brown). It is com-
monly called chotagokhru due to the shape of its fruit
which look likes the cows toe. In many parts of India,
it is known as adhasisi, as this weed is used for the
treatment of common disease hemicrania.
Due to presence of several allelochemical
Xanthium strumarium extract has been used as a her-
bicide. Upadhayay et al. (2004) reported that petro-
leum ether extract from seed and stem + leaf of
Xanthium exhibited 42.98% phytotoxicity on
Echinochloa followed by methanol and water extract
respectively.
Keeping all these points in view the field experi-
ment was conducted to know the effect of different
treatment in enhancing the nutrient content of
transplated rice.
Materials and Methods
We carried two year field experiment during the rainy
season of 2011 at the Agricultural Research Farm of
the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Agri-
cultural Research Farm is situated at a distance of
about 10 km from the Varanasi Railway Station in the
South-East direction and lies in the North Gangetic
alluvial plain, on the left side of river Ganges. It is
located at 25.2 N latitude and 83.0 E longitude and at
an altitude of 75.7 meters above the mean sea
level.Varanasi falls in the belt of semi-arid to sub-hu-
mid climate receiving a mean assured rainfall of 1100
mm and potential evapotranspiration of about 1,525
mm thus causing a moisture deficit of 425 mm. The
soil of the experimental field was Gangetic alluvial
having sandy clay loam texture with pH 7.5. It was
moderately fertile, with available nitrogen (181.2kg/
ha), available phosphorus (25.5 kg/ha), available po-
tassium (201.4 kg/ha) and organic carbon (0.33%). The
experiment was laid out in randomized complete block
design with 11 herbicidal treatments viz. petroleum
ether extract of X. strumarium @ 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000
mg l
-1
, Anilofos @ 900 ml
-l
, Butachlor @ 3000 mg l
-1
,
methanol extract of X. strumarium @ 1000, 2000 and
3000 mg l
-1
, water extract of X. strumarium @ 1000,
2000 and 3000 m l
-1
and untreated control. The treat-
ments were replicated thrice. A recommended dose
of 120 kg N, 60 kg P
2
O
5
, 60 kg K
2
O ha
-1
and 4.2 kg Zn
were applied to rice crop, through broadcasting. Ni-
trogen, phosphorous and potassium were applied
through urea, diammonium phosphate (DAP), muri-
ate of potash (MOP) and zinc sulfate (ZnSO
4
.7H
2
O)
respectively. One fourth dose of nitrogen and full dose
of P, K and Zn were applied after last puddling and
remaining three-fourth in two different doses, first
two-fourth doses at tillering stage (30 days after trans-
planting) and second one-fourth doses at panicle ini-
tiation stage (55 days after transplanting).
Xanthium strumarium
Xanthium strumarium is a common weed found in
India. It is a herbaceous plant, native of India, Ceylon,
203
North America and other warmer parts of world. It is a
deep-rooted,short-lived, summer annual herb with an
height of 30-90 cm and propagates through seed ly-
ing with its burr (4).
The aerial parts of the plant contain a mixture of
unidentified alkaloids, which are said to be toxic. Be-
sides alkaloids, the aerial parts of the plant contain
sesquiterpene lactones, viz. xanthinin. The main toxic
compound isolated from the plant has been identified
as carboxyatractyloside, a kaurene glycoside previ-
ously called xanthostrumarium. In addition to
carboxyatractyloside CAT, potentially toxic ingredi-
ents include several sesquitepene lactones e.g.
guaianolides, germacranolides, and elemanolides (5).
The toxic principles of the seeds are hydroquinone,
choline and a third more toxic unidentified compound.
Besides these, the seeds also contain considerable
amount of iodine (6).
Extraction of Xanthium strumarium
Petroleum ether extraction (low polar solvent ex-
traction)
Xanthium strumarium was collected from Agricultu-
ral Research Farm. It was air dried for 75 days and
ground separately viz. stem, leaf and seed with willey
grinder. Then final ground material was mixed
(stem+leaf+seed) and used for extraction.
Soxhlet was used as extraction apparatus. Nor-
mally, ground X.Strumarium (stem + leaf+seed) of 100
g weight was placed inside a thimble made from thick
filter paper, which was loaded into the main chamber
of the Soxhlet extractor. The Soxhlet extractor was
placed into a flask containing 1000 ml petroleum ether
(60-80
o
C). The Soxhlet was then fitted with with a con-
denser.
The petroleum ether was heated up to 70
o
C. The
solvent vapour travels up a distillation arm, and floods
into the chamber housing the thimble of solid matarial.
The condenser ensures cooling of solvent vapor, and
drips back down into the chamber housing the ground
X. Strumarium (stem + leaf+seed).
The chamber containing the solid material slowly
Table 1. Amount of extracts obtained from 100 g of ground
Xanthium strumarium L.
Name of Volume of Extract
solvent solvent (mL) weight (g)
Petroleum ether 1000 4.16
Methanol 1000 5. 8
Water 1000 8.12
filled with warm solvent. Some of the desired com-
pound was dissolved in the warm solvent. When the
Soxhlet chamber was almost full, the chamber was
automatically emptied by a siphon side arm, with the
solvent runing back down to the distillation flask.
This cycle was allowed to repeat over 5 hours. In this
way mixture of petroleum ether and soluble compound
of X. strumarium was collected in round bottom flask.
After extraction the solvent is removed, typically
by means of a rotary evaporator yielding 4.16 g ex-
tracted material. The data pertaining to this attribute
are presented in Table 1. The non-soluble portion of
the extracted solid remained in the thimble, and was
discarded.
Methanol extraction
(High polar solvent extraction)
All extraction process was same as petroleum ether
extraction but instead of petroleum ether methanol
was used as solvent. The data pertaining to this at-
tribute has been presented in Table 1 which was show
that when 1000 ml methanol was used as solvent,
5.8g plant extract was obtained from 100 g ground X.
strumarium.
Water extraction (boiling water)
Water extraction was done by placing 100 g ground
cocklbur (equal proportion of stem, leaf and seed) in
beaker of water boiled by heater for an hour. The ma-
terial was filtered with cotton cloth and filtrate con-
taining plant extract and water was separated by us-
ing heater. In this way water was evaporated and plant
extract (8.12 g) was left in beaker. The data pertaining
to this attribute has been presented in Table 1.
Herbicides and all Xanthium strumarium extract
204
Table 2. Effect of different treatments on nutrients content (%) of rice crop.
Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium
Treatments Rate (mg L
-1
) Grain Straw Grain Straw Grain Straw
Control - 1.19 0.59 0.19 0.075 0.28 1.75
Anilofos 900 1.24 0.75 0.24 0.099 0.35 2.15
Butachlor 3000 1.22 0.68 0.22 0.089 0.34 1.96
Petroleum ether extract of
Xanthium strumarium 2000 1.24 0.73 0.24 0.096 0.35 2.11
Petroleum ether extract of
Xanthium strumarium 3000 1.24 0.79 0.25 0.112 0.35 2.17
LSD (P=0.05) 0.010 0.054 0.015 0.010 0.027 0.115
were applied in transplanted ricevariety HUBR 2-1 as
pre-emergence of weeds after two days of transplant-
ing. The variation in the nutrient content of the plant
was analyses after harvesting.
Statistical analysis
The observations recorded during the course of in-
vestigation were tabulated and analyzed statistically
to draw a valid conclusion. The data were analyzed
as per the standard procedure for Analysis of Vari-
ance (ANOVA) as described by Gomez and Gomez
(7) by using Microsoft office excels 2007. The signifi-
cance of treatments was tested by F test (variance
ratio). Standard error of mean was computed in all
cases. The difference in the treatment mean were
tested by using Least Significant Difference (LSD) at
5% level of probability where F test showed signifi-
cant differences among means by the following for-
mula :
2 error mean sum of square
LSD = t (error d.f.5%)

Results and Discussion

Among the treatments application of petroleum ether
extract of X. strumarium @ 2000 and 3000 mg l
-1
re-
corded maximum N, P and K content in grain and straw
(Table 2). This was perhaps due to lower weed com-
petition in terms of dry matter of weeds which pro-
vided congenial environment for more availability of
moisture and nutrient to crop and restrict removal of
nutrient by weeds which in turn encouraged better
plant growth, bold grains and finally higher yield which
led to uptake of N, P and K. It was found that applica-
tion of petroleum ether @ 2000 and 3000 mg l
-1
equally
effective because both are at par with each other.
Nanjappa and Krishnamurthy (8) reported that N, P
and K uptake by rice crop was inversely proportional
to the N, P and K uptake by weeds. Nandal and Singh
(9) found that application of herbicides reduced nu-
trient removal by weeds. Use of herbicides minimized
the weefs effectively and made more nutrients avail-
able to rice crop and consequently results in higher
yield.
Since application of petroleum ether extract @
2,000 and 3,00 mg l
-1
was found more and equally
effctive 2, 000 mg l
-1
can be accepted to be more logi-
cal for adaption. In the figure it is clearly show that
nitrogen and phosphorus content of grain was more
as compare to straw but potassium content was more
in straw of rice.
Figure 1. Nutrient content differes with treatments in both
grain and straw of rice
205
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