Comparative study of aqueous extracts of Celosia argentea L. and Silver nanoparticles on seed germination and seedling growth of Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.)
Ghafoor Unnisa, Aurosha Fayaz, Maleeha Taqdees Malik, *S. Maqbool Ahmed and Mohammad Faizan
Botany Section, School of Sciences, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad-500032 (India) *Correspondence: maqboolbotany@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Celosia argentea is one of the most common weeds grown in Pearl millet (Bajra) fields. It is used to determine the allelopathic potential on the growth and developmental changes on crop plants. At the same time, Nanotechnology also emerging as an innovative technology in many fields of research such as agriculture, medicines, and industries. The present study was conducted to evaluate the allelopathic effects of C. argentea in the presence/absence of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on seed germination, shoot and root length, germination index, and vigor index of P. millet. Experiment was conducted under control conditions in petri plates. Aqueous extracts of shoot of C. argentea with the concentration of 50% and Ag NPs of 50 ppm were applied on the P. millet seeds. Seed germination was observed on day 2 and day 5, length of hypocotyl and root number was measured on the 5th day. Results from the present study demonstrated that shoot extracts of C. argentea caused negative effects on the aforesaid parameters. However, exogenous application of Ag NPs caused positive effects and increased all the above parameters in the presence/absence of C. argentea. Therefore, it is concluded from the above study that, inhibitory effects of aqueous extracts may be due to the presence of allelochemicals in C. argentea and it is overcome by the application of Ag NPs. However, in-depth underlying mechanism of the inhibitory as well as stimulatory effects needs to be further explored.