EXOGENOUS APPLICATION OF DIFFERENT PLANT EXTRACTS ON THE GROWTH AND PERFORMANCE OF WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

Abstract

The decomposed leaves of forest trees may affect the growth and yield of crops planted around them. The present study on the exogenous application of plant extracts on wheat seed was conducted at Farm area of Agronomy Department, Agriculture Faculty, Gomal University during the year 2020-21 with the objective of evaluating the stimulating or inhibitory effect of forest plants water extracts on the germination, growth and grain yield of spring wheat. Experiment was done in RCBD fashion with three replicates. The 7 unit of treatments comprised of T₁ (only water), T₂ (Conocarpus lancifolius), T₃ (Acacia arabica L.), T₄ (Moringa oleifera L.), T₅ (Dalbergia sissoo), T₆ (Eucalyptus globulus), and T₇ (Cordia myxa L.) phyto extracts were utilized @5 % (w/v) for seed priming of wheat seed cultivar AZRIC- Dera Ismail Khan. All the germination physiology, morphological, yield contributing and grain yield parameters depicted significantly differed among the treatments. The M. oleifera and D. sissoo showed 8% and 4% more grain yield compared to control and 16% more yield than E. globulus extracts. So, it is concluded that the planting of M. oleifera and D. sissoo should be encouraged around the cropping area for having positive impacts on the grain yield of wheat crop while cultivation of C. lancifolius and E. globulus should be avoided near the wheat growing area as they have negative impacts on the wheat growth physiology, grain yield and its components.