Impact of Water Hyacinth and Water Lettuce Aqueous Extracts on Growth and Germination of Wheat and Its Associated Troublesome Weeds

Abstract

Gul et al.: Impact of water hyacinth and water lettuce aqueous extracts on growth and germination of wheat and its weeds - Abstract. To study the effect of Eichhornia crassipes and Pistia stratiotes on germination of wheat and its weeds, a lab experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design with 3 replications. The seeds of test species were soaked in respective concentrations of aquatic weeds' aqueous extracts for 24 hrs before putting in Petri plates. E. crassipes extracts reduced wild oat germination to zero, milk thistle to 10% and wheat to 20%. Similarly, P. stratiotes also reduced wild oat (6.7%) and wheat germination (26.7%). Shoot length is reduced to 2.57 cm in wild oat compared to milk thistle (6.06 cm) and wheat (9.08 cm). E. crassipes reduced wild oat shoot length weight to zero, while shoot weight of wheat is reduced (0.06 g), yet increased Silybum (0.08 g). P. stratiotes decreased shoot weight in all test species. At lower concentration E. crassipes enhanced root weight in wild oat and Silybum (7.7, 5.7g), while P. stratiotes reduced (0.01g each), yet enhanced it at higher concentration (7.7g each). The extracts negatively affected all test species, but the weeds performed well at lower concentration. These aquatic weeds can be used as mulch for weed management in wheat due to their allelopathy potential towards noxious weeds of wheat.

Negative correlations between native macrophyte diversity and water hyacinth abundance are stronger in its introduced than in its native range

“…For example, the nutrient acquisition rates of the species from the introduced range may be slower (Zhou, Pan, Xu, Wang, & Cui, ), whereas the native species at the E. crassipes native range may present similar nutrient acquisition rates of this species as they have competed throughout their evolutionary history. In addition, the release of allelopathic compounds produced by this invasive species may have a negative effect on the species from the introduced range of E. crassipes occurrence (Gul et al, ; Pei et al, ). The release of these compounds in the introduced range may have negative effects upon other native macrophytes that are not familiar to them (Novel Weapon Hypothesis; Callaway & Ridenour, ).…”

“…Either mechanism could lead to higher impacts in the former rather than in the latter. The release of allelopathic compounds produced by water hyacinth (Gul et al, ; Pei et al, ) may also affect invaded communities at a higher extent giving the lack of co‐evolutionary history between natives and non‐native species (Callaway et al, ). Following our hypothesis, we firstly predicted that the number of native species (alpha diversity; richness per quadrat) and native abundance (total plant cover per quadrat) reduce as E. crassipes biomass increases, but it would be steeper in the introduced range.…”

Performance assessment of local aquatic macrophytes for domestic wastewater treatment in Nigerian communities: A review

“…Environmental factors such as temperature, solar radiation, the salinity of water etc., affects their growth and performance. The selected plants can survive and flourish under high temperatures, and nutrients concentration, tolerate drought and a wide range of pH values and also grow very fast ( Fonkou et al., 2002 ; Gupta et al., 2012 ; Gul et al., 2017 ; Ceschin et al., 2019 ). This means they can easily be cultured over a short period of time.…”

“…This means they can easily be cultured over a short period of time. These macrophytes, especially Water hyacinth and Water lettuce are also invasive in nature ( Uka et al., 2007 ; Odedishemi, 2009 ; Gupta et al., 2012 ; Gul et al., 2017 ; Ekperusi et al., 2019 ), which could hinder economic activities such as sailing and fishing where their population dominates. Hence, researchers and investors can take advantage to reduce and eliminate the cost of destruction by putting them into beneficial use.…”