Phenology of Bengal Dayflower as Indicator of Glyphosate Tolerance

The importance of the phenological development of weeds has been frequently ignored when analyzing plant-herbicide tolerance or resistance, what may result on divergences between theoretical research and practical data application. Thus, this work was carried out to evaluate the biological response of Bengal dayflower (Commelina benghalensis), comparatively to alexandergrass (Brachiaria plantaginea), to the application of different rates of glyphosate, at six phenological stages. Two experiments were developed under greenhouse conditions, with Bengal dayflower and alexandergrass plants being submitted to a 9 x 6 factorial scheme, where nine treatments were the glyphosate rates and six, the weed phenological stages, varying between unfolding of the first true leaf and the beginning of flowering. Using dose-response curves and polynomial regressions, it could be concluded that the Bengal dayflower phenological stages significantly contribute to the species' degree of glyphosate-tolerance, since, compared to alexandergrass, Bengal dayflower plants became four times more tolerant to glyphosate at every ten units of phenological development at the BBCH scale. These considerations have an important practical applicability, justifying chemical control measurements at the initial growth stages of Bengal dayflower.