Allelopathic potential of summer weeds on germination and growth performance of wheat and chickpea

The biochemical interference between weed-crop for the available resources is one of the most crucial and burning issues for this modern and technologically blessed farming community. Because-of, the early adaptative nature, rapid growth, and fast distribution of weed make it able to inhibit the desired crop growth and reduce the final estimated yields. Thus, our interest was raised in examining the bio-efficacy of some winter weeds against two main agronomic crop germination and seedling growth, and weeds were collected from two different districts D.I. Khan and Peshawar. Wheat variety (Atta Habib) and Chickpea variety (Karak-1) varieties were used in the trial. The experiment was conducted in (2020) in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with a factorial arrangement having three replications. We used the following weeds extracts; Trianthema portulacastrum L., Cyperus rotundus L., Plantago lenceolata L., Xanthium strumarium L., Oxalis corniculata L., Eleusine indica L. and distilled water as a control in this study, and introduced them to chickpea and wheat seeds. Our results show that weeds collected from district Dera Ismail Khan were more phytotoxic as compared to Peshawar and greatly inhibited the overall seed germination of wheat and chickpea respectively i.e., 44.53%, and 37.97%. In the case of weeds extract inhibitory effect, the T. portulacastrum was declared more repressive for both crops in terms of germination inhibition and seedling growth retardation. Taken together, the T. portulacastrum weed extract of D.I Khan was highly phytotoxic to inhibit the germination and germination of both crops, therefore, eco-friendly and proper weed management tactics require from the farming community in the early stages or before crop sowing.