Wednesday, November 7, 2007
249-19

Herbicide Application in Relation to Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Leaf Yield and Polyphenol Contents in Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L.).

Sajid Ali and Bernd Honermeier. Institute of Crop Science and Plant Breeding I, Ludwigstrasse: 23, Giessen, 35390, Germany

Artichoke is a traditional vegetable grown in south Europe and flourishes well in subtropical environment. Its leaves contain a high percentage of polyphenols that have medicinal properties and can be used in curing certain diuretic, choleretic, hepatoprotective and pediatric diseases.
Wide inter and intra row spaces provide weeds a good chance to grow rapidly. Herbicides used to control weeds possibly can have adverse effect on fluorescence ability of leaves and ultimately on photosynthetic yield.

Keeping in view the medicinal importance of the plant and possible interaction between certain important chemicals and herbicide application the present work was carried out to study the relationship between herbicide application and chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf yield and polyphenol contents of artichoke selecting herbicides such as Haloxyfop, Phenomedipham, Pyridat, Quizalofop-P and Prosulfocarb. These were applied after germination of the artichoke crop against manually weeded control. Chlorophyll fluorescence and toxicity data were recorded 1 day, 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 weeks after application. For toxicity measurement 1-9 scale was used where at 1 there were no toxicity symptoms and at 9 there was necrosis of leaves. Mini PAM was used for chlorophyll fluorescence measurements. Our results showed that chlorophyll fluorescence dropped rapidly in case of Pyridat  (0.2) followed by Phenomedipham  (0.4) but the plants recovered three weeks after application of the herbicide and showed normal chlorophyll fluorescence. Toxicity symptoms started to appear one week after the application of Pyridat and started to decrease and crop recovered the herbicide stress 4 weeks after-application of herbicide. We found that herbicides had no significant effect on polyphenolic contents of artichoke leaves and dry matter too was not affected significantly by different herbicides and was minimum in control. In addition maximum fresh leaf yield was obtained in control that refers to reduction of moisture by herbicides.