Assessment of allelopathic potential of Aphanamixis polystachya on selected field crops

Purpose: Aphanamixis polystachya (Wall.) R.N. Parker, belonging to Meliaceae family is very well known for its medicinal properties. But its allelopathic potentiality not yet has been reported. Hence, aqueous extracts of different parts of Aphanamixis polystachya were examined to investigate their allelopathic potentiality. Research Method: Different parts of A. polystachya extracts at four different concentrations (1:5, 1:10, 1:15 and 1:20 (w/v)) along with control (distilled water without extracts) were tested against jute, mungbean, mustard, radish, rice, wheat and tomato. The experiments were conducted following completely randomized design with three replicates. Findings: Among the test crop species, shoot growth of mustard was most sensitive (43% average inhibition (a.i.)) followed by radish (41% a.i.) to the extracts of different parts of A. polystachya., whereas shoot growth of tomato (14% a.i.) was less sensitive to the extracts followed by rice (25% a.i.) and mungbean (29% a.i.). Root growth of radish was most sensitive (41% a.i.) species followed by mustard (39% a.i.) and jute (36% a.i.) to the extract of different parts of A. polystachya. Root growth of mungbean (13% a.i.) was less sensitive to the extracts followed by tomato (18% a.i.) and rice (20% a.i.). Among the plant parts, leaf showed most phytotoxic activity on the shoot growth (41%) and twig on the root (40%) growth of the test plants. However, stem extract was less sensitive to both shoot and root growth of the test species. These results confirm that A. polystachya has allelopathic properties and may possess allelochemicals. Research limitations: There was no significant limitation to the report. Originality/Value: To the best of our knowledge this is the first report about the allelopathic potential of Aphanamixis polystachya.