This book provides comprehensive information on 104 principle weeds of the world, covering species that are responsible for a high proportion of all the world's crop losses. It includes 122 original maps and botanical illustrations, original data collected by the authors themselves in research travels around the world.

World Weeds: Natural Histories and Distribution

Pests and diseases are responsible for most of the losses related to agricultural crops, either in the field or in storage. Moreover, due to indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides over the years, several issues have come along, such as pest resistance and contamination of important planet sources, such as water, air and soil. Therefore, in order to improve efficiency of crop production and reduce food crisis in a sustainable manner, while preserving consumer's health, plant-derived pesticides may be a green alternative to synthetic ones. They are cheap, biodegradable, ecofriendly and act by several mechanisms of action in a more specific way, suggesting that they are less of a hazard to humans and the environment. Natural plant products with bioactivity toward insects include several classes of molecules, for example: terpenes, flavonoids, alkaloids, polyphenols, cyanogenic glucosides, quinones, amides, aldehydes, thiophenes, amino acids, saccharides and polyketides (which is not an exhaustive list of insecticidal substances). In general, those compounds have important ecological activities in nature, such as: antifeedant, attractant, nematicide, fungicide, repellent, insecticide, insect growth regulator and allelopathic agents, acting as a promising source for novel pest control agents or biopesticides. However, several factors appear to limit their commercialization. In this critical review, a compilation of plant-derived metabolites, along with their corresponding toxicology and mechanisms of action, will be approached, as well as the different strategies developed in order to meet the required commercial standards through more efficient methods.

https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/26/16/4835/pdf

Plant-Derived Pesticides as an Alternative to Pest Management and Sustainable Agricultural Production: Prospects, Applications and Challenges.

An attempt has been made in this article to accumulate and elucidate the literatures about the allelopathic potentiality of medicinal plants, and its role on the development of bio-herbicides for eco-friendly weed management strategies to conserve bio-diversity and ecological balance. This review paper has been prepared by comprehensive studies of various published research articles, books and proceedings available in the world literature. The farmers of different countries use several weed management techniques in order to minimize the deleterious effect of weeds. Among them most commonly used practice is application of herbicides due to its high efficacy and cost effectiveness, less time-consuming nature, flexibility and easy accessibility, and more rapid out return. Although use of synthetic herbicides in the crop fields has increased the crop production as well as the productivity by reducing the weed infestation, over time it causes a number of environmental hazards. Hence, to avoid these detrimental effects of synthetic herbicide, a lot of efforts have been dedicated by the researchers to search the novel natural plant products mainly allelochemicals and try to apply them as a tool for the development of bio-degradable natural herbicides. This paper intended to reflect the current state of allelopathic medicinal plants and their potentiality to develop eco-friendly and natural product-based herbicides for sustainable agriculture, and to invite further debate on this issue.

/pdf/allelopathy-of-medicinal-plants-current-status-and-future-22r4ns9s5a.pdf

Allelopathy of Medicinal Plants: Current Status and Future Prospects in Weed Management

Wedelia chinensis (Asteraceae) is a wetland herb native to India, China, and Japan. It is a valuable medicinal plant recorded to have pharmaceutical properties. However, the phytotoxic potential of Wedelia chinensis has not yet been examined. Thus, we carried out this study to establish the allelopathic effects of Wedelia chinensis and to identify its phytotoxic substances. Extracts of Wedelia chinensis exhibited high inhibitory activity against the root and shoot growth of cress, alfalfa, rapeseed, lettuce, foxtail fescue, Italian ryegrass, timothy, and barnyard grass. The inhibition was varied with species and was dependent on concentrations. The extracts were separated through several purification steps, and the two effective substances were isolated and characterized as vanillic acid and gallic acid using spectral analysis. Vanillic acid and gallic acid significantly arrested the growth of cress and Italian ryegrass seedlings. The concentrations of vanillic acid and gallic acid needed for 50% inhibition (I50 values) of the seedling growth of the cress and Italian ryegrass were 0.04–15.4 and 0.45–6.6 mM, respectively. The findings suggest that vanillic acid and gallic acid may be required for the growth inhibitory activities of Wedelia chinensis.

https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/9/11/1591/pdf

Allelopathic Potential and Active Substances from Wedelia Chinensis (Osbeck).

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a highly valuable plant. Iran provides nearly 90% of the world’s total saffron and is the biggest global producer. The allelopathic effects of saffron corm (SC) and saffron field soil (SFS) have been hypothesized to play an important role in replanting. Recently, adsorbent materials have been used to neutralize the effects of allelochemicals. These materials, including activated carbon and zeolite, have large surface areas, pore volumes, as well as tremendous adsorptive capacity and complex chemical and physical properties. In this study, three independent experiments were conducted. In the first test, the allelopathic effects of aqueous and methanolic extracts of SC remnant and 9-year-old SFS as well as filtered aqueous extract of soil were investigated. In the second assay, the effects of SC remnants and SFS with different ages (i.e., 4, 6, and 9 years old) in combination with adsorbents were examined on the germination and growth of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) seedlings by the sandwich method. In the third experiment, we examined the effects of SC remnants combined with adsorbents on lettuce growth parameters. Our results showed that the allelopathic effects of aqueous and methanolic extracts of SC remnant were significantly superior to those of 9-year-old SFS. The aqueous extract of SC remnant reduced the root length of lettuce by 50%. The use of activated carbon and zeolites significantly decreased the observed allelopathic effect. Moreover, lettuce growth in rhizosphere soil was significantly inhibited by SC remnant and SFS extracts. The allelopathic effects of SC remnants caused a growth imbalance between the shoot and roots. Based on biochemical analyses, using the adsorbents increased the carotenoid content and chlorophyll index of lettuce by 23.33% and 5.25%, respectively. Adsorbents may play a role in treating soils contaminated by allelochemicals.

https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/9/12/1714/pdf

Recent Advances in Saffron Soil Remediation: Activated Carbon and Zeolites Effects on Allelopathic Potential.

Caesalpinia mimosoides (Fabaceae) has been used as a folk medicine and reported to have pharmacological properties. However, the phytotoxicity of C. mimosoides has not yet been studied. Therefore, the phytotoxic activity of C. mimosoides leaf and stem extracts was evaluated against the growth of dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plants. Aqueous methanol extracts of C. mimosoides leaves and stems exhibited inhibitory effects on the growth of all the test plants. The growth of the test plants decreased with the increase of concentrations of the extracts. Comparison of the concentrations required for 50% growth inhibition (I50 values) indicates that the leaf extracts had more inhibitory effects than the stem extracts. Thus, the active substances in the leaf extracts were purified using column chromatographic separations and a growth inhibitory substance was isolated and identified as methyl gallate by using spectral analysis. This study reports the first isolation of methyl gallate in C. mimosoides leaves. Methyl gallate at 10 mM completely inhibited the growth of cress shoots and inhibited its roots by 4.7% of control growth. At the same concentration, the shoots and roots of barnyard grass were inhibited by 84.2 and 1.7% of control growth, respectively. I50 values of methyl gallate for the growth of cress and barnyard grass ranged from 2.3 to 2.9 and 0.3 to 30.5 mM, respectively. The results suggest that methyl gallate may be responsible for the phytotoxic effects of C. mimosoides.

Evaluation of phytotoxic activity of leaf and stem extracts and identification of a phytotoxic substance from Caesalpinia mimosoides Lamk.

Investigation of the Allelopathic Potential of Nephrolepis cordifolia (L.) C. Presl against Dicotyledonous and Monocotyledonous Plant Species

Aqueous methanol extracts of Acmella oleracea inhibited the growth of roots and shoots of cress (Lepidum sativum), lettuce (Lactuca sativa), Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum), and barnyard gras...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1934578X19858805

Plant growth inhibitory activity of the extracts of acmella oleracea and its growth inhibitory substances

Jatropha podagrica Hook. is cultivated as an ornamental plant and is also used in traditional medicine. The species has various pharmacological properties, but it has not yet been investigated for ...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1934578X1801301126

Identification of 6,7-dimethoxychromone as a potent allelochemical from jatropha podagrica

A plant growth inhibitory substance was isolated from Heliotropium indicum by bioassay-guided purification and characterized to be (+)-isoamericanol A. (+)-Isoamericanol A significantly inhibited s...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1934578X19845788

Sutjaritpan Boonmee

Papers

Evaluation of phytotoxic activity of leaf and stem extracts and identification of a phytotoxic substance from Caesalpinia mimosoides Lamk.

Investigation of the Allelopathic Potential of Nephrolepis cordifolia (L.) C. Presl against Dicotyledonous and Monocotyledonous Plant Species

Plant growth inhibitory activity of the extracts of acmella oleracea and its growth inhibitory substances

Identification of 6,7-dimethoxychromone as a potent allelochemical from jatropha podagrica

(+)-Isoamericanol A: A Plant Growth Inhibitor From Heliotropium indicum: