Evaluation of the allopathic effects of quinoa residues on germination and morphophysiological traits of wheat

Wheat is the most important agricultural product in the world and plays an important role in ensuring human food security. According to the fact that Wheat is planted after Quinoa, it is feared that the presence of Quinoa in Wheat cultivation may cause negative allelopathic effects. To investigate the effect of aqueous extract of Quinoa on seed germination and early growth of Wheat seedling, a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with four replications was conducted at Seed Technology Laboratory of Shahed University of Agriculture, Tehran, Iran. Experimental factors included organ type (inflorescence, leaf, stem and root) and aqueous extract concentration of Quinoa (0, 5, 25, 50, 75 and 100%). In this experiment traits such as germination percentage, shoot length, root length, plantlet length, plantlet dry weight, relative water content, alpha-amylase activity, soluble sugar content, total phenol and proline of Wheat seedling were studied. The results showed that low concentrations of the extract of Quinoa (5 and 25%) had not only negative effects on germination percentage, plantlet length, dry weight and relative water content of Wheat, but even improved these traits. High concentrations of the extract had negative effects on morphological traits. The negative effects of leaf and inflorescence extracts were more than the effects of stem and root extracts. Application of different extracts of Quinoa reduced the activity of alpha-amylase and increased soluble sugar, total phenol and amino acid proline in wheat plantlet.