Plant Origin Herbicides: Chemistry, Mode of Action and Weed Management
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International Journal of Agricultural Sciences Volume 9 | Issue 1| January, 2013 | 413-422 A REVIEW Plant origin herbicides: chemistry, mode of action and weed management D. SUBRAMANYAM*, D. SRINIVASULU1, V. SUMATHI AND K. SAJITHA1 Department of Agronomy, S.V. Agricultural College, TIRUPATI (A.P.) INDIA Abstract : Plant origin herbicides or allelomones are major source of natural herbicides to combat the weed problem in current organic and sustainable agriculture. Some of the secondary metabolites extracted from plant origin provide lead molecules viz., 1, 8-cineole, leptospermone, artemisinin, sorgoleone and benzoquinones act as templates or analogs to produce new synthetic chemical herbicides. Various plant products had sufficient quantities of allelomones that affect the growth and development of weeds directly, however, these effects are concentration dependent. Herbicidal activity of plant aqueous extracts of sorghum, rice, maize, sunflower, eucalyptus and some of the medicinal plants and other plants were explained to control the weeds in different situations. Combined applications of these plant origin aqueous water extracts with reduced rates of synthetic herbicides could be an economic and effective weed management practices in organic and sustainable agriculture to minimize the herbicide load in soil. Key Words : Plant origin herbicides, Chemistry, Weed management View Point Article : Subramanyam, D., Srinivasulu, D., Sumathi, V. and Sajitha, K. (2013). Plant origin herbicides: chemistry, mode of action and weed management. Internat. J. agric. Sci., 9(1): 413-422. Article History : Received : 11.08.2012; Accepted : 19.11.2012 INTRODUCTION organic molecules, synthesizing analog of patent herbicides that do not fall within the boundaries of the existing patent, Herbicides continue to be a key component in most of designing of new herbicide molecule based on molecular target the integrated weed management systems. Extensive and site i.e. bio rational approach and screening of natural products continuous use of synthetic herbicides could lead to serious for herbicidal activity. threats to both environment and public health. Usage of There is great incentive to discover biologically potent synthetic herbicides is becoming more restrictive due to natural products from higher plants that are as good as or various problems viz., residual toxicity, reduction in the choice better than synthetic agrochemicals. The potential wealth of of succeeding crops, development of herbicide resistant weeds natural plant based chemicals was relatively untapped and and source for carcinogenic and mutagenic effects on human chemical structures were not identified. Phytotoxicity of plant beings and animals (Rial-otero et al., 2005) However, herbicide products could lead to find out new herbicide molecules and industry continuously searching for more effective, to plan environmental friendly weed management strategies. economical and environmentally safer herbicide formulations. The use of natural products for weed control has become The need for current sustainable and organic agricultural increasingly popular, particularly in organic and sustainable production system has also generated demand for effective agricultural systems. As the demand increases for cultivation and alternate plant based natural herbicides to combat the of crops under sustainable agriculture and organic farming weed problem from the natural product data base. Duke et al. lead to less usage of synthetic chemical herbicides and (1997) suggested four approaches for identifying synthetic attention is focused on reducing reliance upon synthetic organic herbicides i.e screening of large number of synthetic herbicides and find out natural ways of weed management. * Author for correspondence and Present Address: Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kalikiri, CHITTOOR (A.P.) INDIA (Email:[email protected]) 1Department of Chemistry, Sri Venkateswara University, TIRUPATI (A.P.) INDIA D. SUBRAMANYAM, D. SRINIVASULU, V. SUMATHI AND K. SAJITHA Allelopathy is a natural and environment friendly based on lead molecules of plant based secondary metabolites phenomenon, which proved to be a useful tool for weed were discussed hereunder. management and thereby increase the crop yield (Putnam et al ., 1983). Chemicals produced with allelopathic influence are 1, 8- cineole : known as allelochemicals and most of them are classified as Essential oils and their constituents act as potential and secondary metabolites (Rice, 1984). These metabolites were ecologically acceptable natural herbicides with novel modes produced from the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and of action for weed management, particularly with 1,8-cineole amino acids through acetate or shikimic acid path way. (1S,4S-1-isopropyl-4-methyl-7-oxabicyclo[2.2.1]heptanes) Thousands of secondary metabolites obtained from plants is a monoterpenoid of many aromatic plants (Salvia provide diverse and challenged structures, which act as natural leucophylla and Eucalyptus citridora) known to be highly herbicides, appear to have more potential herbicides with better phytotoxic to monocotyledon and some dicotyledon weeds. selectivity to crops (Vyvyan, 2002). Allelochemicals produced It is significantly reduced the germination and growth of weeds by plants used as natural herbicides and these allelomones due to inhibition of mitosis (Romagni et al., 2000). The ester have good herbicidal activity between the concentrations of derivatives of cineole showed increased activity compared to 10-5 to 10-7 M (Macias, 1995). Allelochemicals, which have hydroxyl or carboxylic acid cineole (Barton et al., 2010). sufficient herbicidal activity used as herbicides directly to Structural modification of monoterpene, 1, 8-cineole led to the control the weeds, while other products with lower herbicidal development of a commercial herbicide, cinmethylin (1R, 4S)- activity may be served as chemical templates for development 4-isopropyl-1-methyl-2-(2-methylbenzyloxy)-7-oxabicyclo of synthetic herbicides. [2.2.1] heptane) (Fig. 1) with more physical and biological Most of the plant based products destroy the target properties including improved herbicide selectivity and weed through contact action and in some instances, required persistence in soil. less than half an hour after application of plant based herbicides to show wilting symptoms on target weeds. The magnitude of damage caused by plant products on weeds CH3 CH3 depends on application time, number of applications and O CH2 concentrations of natural products (Neal, 1998). Mostly these O O CH3 products are used as non-selective post-emergent herbicides or burn down products (Young, 2004). The plant products H C CH H C CH derived from secondary metabolism often have complex carbon 3 3 3 3 1,8-Cineole Cinmethylin skeletons with higher molecular weights than synthetic herbicides. Plant products tend to be rich in oxygen and Fig. 1: Molecular structure of 1, 8 cineole and its synthetic analog nitrogen with more number of chiral centers and sp3 hybridized cinmethylin carbons with more number of ring structures. Such type of diversity is useful to synthesize new class of herbicides based Cinmethylin gave an excellent control of Echinochola on the carbon structures from lead molecules found in natural crus-galli (L.) Beauv before emergence from soil to the 3rd leaf allelomones (Dayan et al., 1999). Further, plant products are stage when it was applied @ 100 g a.i ha-1 in rice (Rao and rapidly degraded in the natural environment due to short half- Rao, 1990), however it has phytotoxic effect on in rice seedlings life period and low amount of heavy atoms. The negative at 75g a.i ha-1 (Subramanyam et al., 2007). allelopathic effects of any crop or weed residue (or) allelomones can be used to control the weeds or to develop Leptospermone : new green herbicides (Oudhia and Tripathi, 1996). There are Manuka oil, the essential oil distillated from manuka tree two fundamental approaches to use the plant origin herbicides (Leptospermum scoparium J.R. and G. Frost) and it acts as for weed control is the chemistry of natural lead molecules/ natural pre-emergence herbicide @ 3 l ha-1 to control grassy templates used for development of new synthetic herbicides weeds like large crab grass. Also, it acts as good post- and these plant based herbicides were used directly as green emergence activity in combination with lemon grass oil. The herbicides to control the weeds in different crops. main ingredient responsible for herbicidal activity in manuka oil is leptospermone (2,2,4,4-tetramethy l-6-(3 Lead molecules for development of new synthetic herbicides: methylbutanoyl) cyclohexane -1,3,5-trione), a-triketone and Lead molecules isolated from natural secondary it was stable in the soil up to 7 days after its application (Dayan metabolites/ allelomones from different plants used as et al., 2011). templates for synthesis of new synthetic herbicides to control The mode of action of leptospermone had similar to that weed management. Some of the plant derivatives are highly of synthetic herbicide sulcotrione ( 2-(2-chloro-4-(methyl phytotoxic to target weeds. The synthetic herbicides produced sulfonyl) benzyl) cyclohexane-1-3-dione) (Fig. 2) and Internat. J. agric. Sci. | Jan., 2013| Vol. 9 | Issue 1 | 413-422414 Hind Agricultural Research and Training Institute PLANT ORIGIN HERBICIDES: CHEMISTRY, MODE OF ACTION & WEED MANAGEMENT mesotrione as these two synthetic herbicides inhibit p-hydroxy 1997). Dehydrozaluzanin is another sesquiterpene