Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences

Introduction
 The term allelopathy was originated by Molisch (1937)

 Allelopathic potential tissues: leaves, stems, flowers, fruits,

seeds and roots. (Putnam, 1988)

 Mechanism: volatilization, leaching, decomposition of

residues, and root exudation (Chou, 1990)
 Introduction

 Sweet Sorghum- allelopathic crop species, producing

phytotoxins (Alan, 2009)

 Major constituent : sorgolene

 Sorgolene is found in the root exudates of most sorghum

species

 very potent allelotoxin that disrupts mitochondrial functions

and inhibits photosynthesis (Alan, 2009)
 Objectives

 The allelopathic effect of different rates of sweet sorghum

residue in the germination of weeds.
 Methodology
 Greenhouse setup : Altheimer laboratory, Fayetteville

 20 flat trays , 20 seeds/ tray

 Area of the tray: 26cm*26cm = 676cm2

 5 species of weeds
 Methodology cont..

 Plant materials : dried, chopped

 2 cm in length

 Treatments: (per 676cm2)

0t/ha (0 gm)
2 t/ha (33.124 gm)
4t/ha (66.44 gm)
6t/ha (100.04gm)
 Major weeds
 Barnyardgrass

 velvetleaf

 pitted morningglory

 large crabgrass

 Palmer amaranth
Results: Overall experiment plot
PMG 0t/ha

2 plants germinated
PMG 4t/ha

8 plants germinated
PA 0t/ha
BYG 2t/ha
 Results
Major weeds 0 t/ha 2 t/ha 4 t/ha 6 t/ha Total
germination
Palmer amaranth 3 2 2 2 9
barnyardgrass 0 1 0 0 1
pitted morningglory 2 5 8 2 17
large crabgrass 2 2 2 0 6
velvetleaf 2 2 1 3 8
 Summary and conclusion
 Dormancy testing wasn’t done prior to the experiment.

 None of the seeds were treated with any chemicals

 None of the plant showed more than 20% germination.

 The allelopathy effect of sweet sorghum couldn’t be verified.