Allelopathic activities of nim on the growth of sorghum, lettuce and Bidens pilosa

The search for alternatives for the synthetic herbicides, as the natural products from plants, may increase one more element to the handling of the harmful plants of the cultures. The aim of this work was to verify the allelopathic effects of neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss.) upon sorghum, lettuce, and Bidens pilosa L. (beggustick) seeds germination and seedlings growth. Aqueous, methanolic, and hexanolic extracts, in the concentrations of 10, 5 and 2,5% (w/v) of nim leaves, were used to irrigate seeds of the plant test, in gerbox boxes, staying in incubator, type BOD. Germination percentages of lettuce seeds and beggustick irrigated with aqueous and methanolic extracts, respectively, were the most harmful to the development of the plants; for sorghum, independently of the used extractor, the increase of the concentration caused reduction of the germination percentages. The aqueous extract caused larger detrimental effect on the index of germination speed for the three studied species. For the sorghum, independently of the appraised concentration, the aqueous extract was the most harmful, differing from the other extractors, with averages of 8.00; 12.986 and 14.68, for the extractors distilled water, hexanol and methanol, respectively. When the biomass accumulation was analyzed for beggustick plants and sorghum, in all used extracts, it could be verified that the biomass accumulation was inversely proportional to the concentration of applied neem.