Trees to control weeds in pearl millet

Abstract

This study shows that growing trees represents a sustainable and efficient alternative to control weeds in millet. A survey was conducted on farmers' fields in September 1998 at the end of the rainy season in Maiduguri in the semi-arid zone of Nigeria to assess the potential of the Faidherbia albida tree for the control of the Striga hermonthica weed in millet. A random survey was carried out in four locations on the farmers' fields. The results show that F. albida trees could completely control S. hermonthica weeds occuring in millet under the tree canopy. Indeed, no single Striga emergence was observed under all trees surveyed, while the adjacent crops outside the tree canopies were seriously infested with S. hermonthica, causing reduction in plant growth of 76.5%, panicle length of 23.8% and millet panicle yield of 171.3%. Furthermore, plant performance under the tree canopies was very high, as plant height was increased by 80.0%, stem diameter by up to 15.9%, panicle length by 34.4% and panicle yield by 298.6% as compared with the Striga-infested plants outside the tree canopy. Plants within the 6-15 m area away from the tree trunk performed better than the 0-5 m area. The implication of these results in relation to Striga control in the semi-arid region of West Africa is discussed.Faidherbia albida / Striga hermonthica / control / millet / semi-arid / Nigeria

Weeds control through tree-crop associations in a parkland of Burkina Faso

“…The average weights of weeds harvested under baobab and Néré trees were 238.17±46 g m One of the effects of trees was an increase of the numbers of weed families and species in the present study, in contrast to previous works carried out on the effect of Faidherbia albida (Gworgwor, 2007) …”

“…The effect of Faidherbia albida tree shade is associated with lower weeds diversity and a significantly lower density of the plant parasite Striga hermontica compared with open areas. Gworgwor (2007) found none emergence of S. hermontica under F. albida trees whereas the parasite was causing up to 17.13% reduction of millet panicle yield in open area in Nigeria. Indeed, the lack of radiation under trees selectively suppresses plants which have high demand for light for their development.…”

Striga

“…This has provided the smallholder farmers with a diversity of options to control the parasites. Several researchers have extensively documented these potential options to combat Striga which have been classified into the most commonly used terms: cultural and mechanical control options including hand-pulling, crop rotation, trap-cropping, intercropping, appropriate improvement of soil fertility, and planting methods (Berner et al, 1995;Kuchinda et al, 2003;Hess and Williams, 1994;Hess and Dodo, 2004;Samake et al, 2006;Gworgwor, 2007;Khan et al, 2002Khan et al, , 2006Khan et al, , 2008Eltayb et al, 2013;Hooper et al, 2015); chemical control method such as application of chemical herbicides Kanampiu et al, 2007a;Kanampiu et al, 2007b) and biological control approaches using the pathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum as a mycoherbicide, or insects (Abbasher et al 1995(Abbasher et al , 1998Kroschel et al 1996;Marley et al, 1999Marley et al, , 2005Hess et al 2002;Elzein and Kroschel, 2004;Yonli et al, 2006;Zahran, 2008;Venne et al, 2009;Zarafi et al, 2015;Watson, 2013). Recently, the potential of the plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) of the genus Bacillus (B. subtilis, B. amyloliquefaciens) and Burkholderia (B. phytofirmans) as Striga biocontrol agent has been surveyed by Mounde (2014).…”