Title: Integration of allelopathy to control weeds in rice

Rice (Oryza sative L.) is the main food crop in Asia and the staple food of the majority of the population in many regions of the world. The population pressure in rice-consuming countries demands that more attention be directed towards new approaches to sustainable rice produc‐ tion. Improvement of both crop quality and yield is an urgent task [1]. Optimally, rice yield improvement must be sought through agronomic approaches that are environmentally safe [2]. Weed management using allelopathy may effect a yield improvement without environ‐ mental cost, which is one of the most important considerations for worldwide scientists working to secure the world’s food supply for future generations. Allelopathy is described as the ability of plants to inhibit or stimulate growth of other plants in the environment by exuding chemicals. The overuse of agrochemicals has caused environmental degradation, pest tolerance and human health concerns. Agriculture worldwide is currently using about 3 million tons of herbicides annually, and herbicide-resistant weeds have become more prolific, which has further expanded the use of herbicides [8]. To solve these problems, it is necessary to develop sustainable weed management systems that may reduce both herbicide dependency and the burden of manual weeding. With attempts to exploit rice’s allelopathic properties for weed control in rice growing, research into rice allelopathy was begun in the early 1970s and has been widely studied in the USA, Europe, Japan, Korea, India and China. If the allelopathic property of crops can be improved, it implies that the competitive ability of crops against weeds can be strengthened, the amount of applied herbicides lowered and environmental risks reduced. Improved crops’ allelopathic potential may be useful for rice and all other crops [9]. Crop allelopathy may be a successful tool to manage weed infestations in agricultural production, if it can be exploited appropriately in a rotational cropping system [10]. However, in the case of rice, it is difficult to rotate different crops in a paddy field; therefore, enhancing weed suppression by rice itself may be among the most feasible means of controlling weeds. [ Khanh, T.D.Linh, L.H. Linh, T.H. Quan, N.T., Cuong, D.M., Hien, V.T.T., Ham, L.H. Trung, K.H. and Xuan,T.D. (2013). Integration of allelopathy to control weeds in rice. Ch. 4:75-99. In Herbicides - Current Research and Case Studies in Use. dx.doi.org/10.5772/56035] Comment

Original source



Article: WeedsNews4639 (permalink)
Categories: :WeedsNews:agricultural weed, :WeedsNews:allelopathy, :WeedsNews:herbicides, :WeedsNews:research alert, :WeedsNews:weed control
Date: 20 September 2013; 9:19:33 AM AEST

Author Name: Zheljana Peric
Author ID: zper12