Allelopathy and the Role of Allelochemicals in Crop Defense under Cropping Systems
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Weed Science and Weed Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2020) | Viewed by 260
Special Issue Editor
Interests: allelopathy; allelochemical; soil sickness; unbalanced soil mineral nutrients; crop defense; biochar utilization
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Allelopathy in field crops is a chemical interaction by which a crop and/or an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other crops. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals, and can have beneficial (positive allelopathy) or detrimental (negative allelopathy) effects on the target crops.
In recent years, many researchers have isolated and determined the structure of allelochemicals from various crops through the development of analytical methods, and have proved the allelopathy phenomenon under laboratory conditions. However, under field conditions, there has been little progress in proving the involvement of allelochemicals isolated and structurally determined at the laboratory level. The reason is that at the field level, various biotic and abiotic factors (e.g., the crop types and varieties, the soil physicochemical properties, and the weather) are involved in a complex manner. In particular, the yield decline of field crops is greatly affected by the compatibility of crops cultivated in crop rotations, continuous cropping, and intercropping. One of the causes is “allelopathy”, but the others are soil diseases (including soil microorganisms) or unbalanced soil mineral nutrients related to the occurrence of changes in soil physicochemical properties. However, it is unclear which factor is the trigger among the three main causes of yield decline in each of the three cropping systems described above.
In this Special Issue, we aim at the field crops research all over the world focusing four major topics related to allelopathy and allelochemicals mentioned below:
- Research on the allelopathic phenomenon in crop defense involving the change in crop yield at the field level, especially in crop rotation, continuous cropping, and intercropping.
- Focus on various new research/analytical methods that evaluate the allelopathy phenomenon or allelochemicals from field crops.
- Research on the significance (role) of allelochemicals exuded from the different crop organs under field conditions.
- Research focusing on cultivation techniques that may be able to minimize the allelopathic phenomena arising from crops at the field level.
Dr. Eiji Nishihara
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- allelopathy
- allelochemical
- field crops
- crop defense
- crop rotation
- continuous cropping
- intercropping
- soil diseases (soil microorganisms)
- unbalanced soil mineral nutrients
- cultivation techniques
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