Effectiveness of ten commercial maize cultivars in inducing Egyptian broomrape germination

Abstract

Egyptian broomrape (EB), Phelipanche aegyptiaca, is a devastating root parasite, causing enormous crop losses around the world. Maize has the potential to influence the growth of other plants through releasing certain allelochemicals and is able to induce germination of at least three broomrape species. To determine whether maize could be used as a trap crop for EB, 10 maize cultivars were tested for their ability to induce EB germination. The results showed that maize cultivars can induce EB germination, and that germination rates in a cut-root experiment and a hydroponic experiment were consistent. Maize cvs Changcheng 799 and Zhengdan 958 induced the highest EB germination rates, while cvs Luyu 13 and Zhengyu 203 were the least effective. These four maize cultivars were further studied in a pot experiment. Rhizosphere soil, rhizosphere soil extracts, root extracts and shoot extracts from these cultivars were all able to induce EB germination, with cv. Changcheng 799 inducing the highest germination rates. Root extracts generally induced higher germination rates than shoot extracts. It is suggested that Changcheng 799 could be planted as a trap crop for control of EB.

Keywords

allelopathy / Egyptian broomrape / maize / seed germination / trap crop

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Science and Technology Ministry (2011BAD31B05) for financial support.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Xiaoxin Ye, Jinnan Jia, Yongqing Ma, Yu An, and Shuqi Dong declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2016. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)