Allelopathy Research paper (Essay Sample)

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Allelopathy
Introduction
Allelopathy refers to a biological process by which an organism produces biochemicals that influence the survival, growth, and reproduction of other related organisms. The biochemicals produced by this process are known as allelochemicals, which can have beneficial or detrimental effect on another organism. According to Sampietro et al. (89), most research activities surround the use of allelopathy in agriculture with a view on the effects of crops on weeds, weeds on crops, and crops on crops. The allelochemicals can also be used as growth regulators to promote sustainable agriculture in various regions. Use of allelopathy in weed management is has received much focus by the scientists (Flood 72). This research captures the ideas of weed suppressions using techniques that entail competition for light and allelopathy. The aim is to analyze the impact that weeds have on various crops that are planted in the same piece of soil.
Materials and methods
Plant Extracts: Greenhouse-grown squash plants like “Blue Hubbard” that are known to suppress weeds were used. Field collected material was collected from various places where varieties were selected based on their availability
Bioassays: When huge volumes of plant extracts are obtained, a bioassay similar to Kingsolver (26) was conducted. There were seeds of test species soaked for at least one hour in the control chambers. Various statistical analyses like ANOVA and T-tests were conducted to back up the results.
Results and Discussion
Leaf leachates: ‘Small Sugar’ leaf leachates proved to be more inhibitory towards the observed crops that the weeds at lower concentration. Radical growth especially of corn was inhibited by almost 2.5%, leachate by 34% and 50% respectively.
Fog drip: It had no activity Radical length of the present lettuce that was treated with fog drip (11.8mm), which seemed not to be significantly different from the ‘control (12.0mm).
The results above offer a continuation to the common literature that there is indeed an inhibition of growth in one or more pla...