A Study on the interaction between melatonin and basagran herbicide on faba bean plant and its associated weeds

Abstract

A pot experiments was conducted to study the possible role of melatonin (50 µM or 100 µM) alone or in combination with Basagran herbicide at recommended dose or ½ recommended dose in reducing the deleterious effect of weed associated with Vicia faba plants. Results show that all applied treatments significantly reduced the weed dry weight at 45 DAS and at harvest accompanied by significant increase in growth parameters of bean plants (at 45 DAS), all components of photosynthetic pigments, seed yield/plant and its components  relative to unweeded treatment. It is obvious that herbicide at recommended dose was more effective than herbicide at ½ recommended dose. Similarly, melatonin at 50 µM was more effective than melatonin at 100 µM. It is worthy to mention that interaction between melatonin at 50 µM and herbicide at recommended dose was the most pronounced treatments, since it significantly decreased weed dry weight by 97.48 % at 45 DAS and at harvest by 94.11% and significantly increased dry weight of plant by 171%, total photosynthetic pigments by 31.75%, faba bean seed yield/plant by 152%, and total carbohydrate of the yielded seeds by 17.77% relative to unweedred treatment. It could be concluded the availability of using the antioxidant as melatonin with basagran herbicide to decrease the deleterious basagran herbicide effect on growth and yield of Vicia faba plants without affecting the efficacy of the herbicide on weeds and decreased weed propagation with significant degree.