WHEAT-WILD OATS INTERACTIONS AT VARYING DENSITIES AND PROPORTIONS

Abstract

Wild oats is a worst weed infesting winter cereals throughout the world. Pot experiment was conducted in the Weed Research Laboratory, Department of Weed Science, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan during 2004-05 to quantify the mutual effects of the two species. Wheat and wild oats were planted in pots in the densities of 0 to 8 plants pot-1 of each species in the Replacement Series. The data were recorded on some morphological, physiological and agronomic traits of both species. The data indicated the density related decline in all the parameters of either species. A single plant of wild oats inflicted 10% decrease in Tillers plant-1of wheat whereas 1.22 plants of wheat induced the same reduction in wild oats. Similar reduction in No. of leaves plant-1 in wheat was observed with the competition of 1.8 oat plants pot-, while only 1.3 wheat plants caused 10% reduction in wild oats No. of leaves plant-1. Wild oats density of 2.8 plants reduced 10% spikelets per spike in wheat, whereas only half than that wheat plants induced 10% amage in wild oats. The data thus indicate that wheat as well as wild mutually inhibits their growth in mixture, but the inhibition is slightly more by wheat to the wild oats than the wild oats to wheat. Thus, wheat if planted at higher seeding rates under the wild oats infested situations can mitigate the damage caused to wheat by the wild oats. The observed suppression of wheat by wild oats also warrants its effective management strategies for harvesting potential yield of wheat.