Investigation of the allelopathic potential of Zygophyllum eurypterum L. plant on seed germination and seedling growth indices of Triticum aestivum L. plant and Acroptilon repens L. weed

This research was conducted in order to investigate the effect of aqueous extract of different organs of Zygophyllum eurypterum on the growth and germination indices of Triticum aestivum and Acroptilon repens. The test treatments included aqueous extracts of Zygophyllum in concentrations of 5,10 and 15% of roots, aerial organs and control. The results showed that with increasing extract concentration, the growth traits and total chlorophyll of both investigated plants significantly decreased. In such a way that the highest and lowest inhibition rates were associated with 15%aerial organs extract and 5%root extract, respectively, but the antioxidant activity of Wheat and Acroptilon increased with increasing levels of root and stem extract of Zygophyllum. The highest level of aerial organs Zygophyllum in Wheat reduced the germination rate by 77.12% compared to the control. However, the germination of Acroptilon seeds completely stopped at the levels of 10 and 15% of aerial organs. By increasing the aerial organs extract concentration to 15%; root length decreased by 49.2% and 52.9% in Acroptilon and in Wheat respectively. The highest amount of antioxidant activity was observed at the level of 15% of aerial organs in both plants, and among this, Acroptilon had more antioxidant activity with 70.32%. Most of the traits including germination percentage, root length and stem length,in Acroptilon weed, were more sensitive to the allelopathic effects of Zygophyllum extract compared to Wheat Based on the results the aerial organs extract of Zygophyllum were more capable to dealing with germination and seedling growth than the root extract.