Cyber Times International Journal of Technology & Management

Weeds are the silent killer of crops presently controlled by the synthetic herbicides. The extensive use of these herbicides created problems in environment and human health. Due to this there is a tremendous pressure on the use of environment friendly herbicides. Essential oils can be the best alternative for synthetic herbicides. So one has to see the effects of essential oils on the agriculture crops and on various weeds before bringing them in the agricultural market as herbicide. Four essential oils from medicinally important aromatic plants, Clove (Syzygium aromaticum), Cinnamon (Cinnamonum zeylanicum), Pama rosa (Cymbopogon martinii) and Garlic (Allium sativum) were tested for their phytotoxic activity against the germination, the initial plumule and radical growth of the Triticum aestivum (L.), Sorghum bicolor (L.), Vigna radiate (W) and Cicer arietinum (L.) as well as its effects on morphological characteristic of Eleusine indica (L.) and Parthenium hysterophorus (L).

The optimum lethal dose of each essential oil was reported for every selected crop and weed. All the essential oils were found equally phytotoxic for the germination of mentioned crops at higher doses and resulted in the effective phytotoxic activity on weeds at lower doses too. Garlic oil has been showed the strongest phytotoxic activity through foliar spray at lower doses as compared to remaining oils.