Growth Performance of Malaysian Parthenium hysterophorus under Various Environmental Variables

Rabiatuladawiyah Ruzmi, Anis Fadzilah Muhammad Akhir, Masilamany Dilipkumar, Uma Rani Sinniah, Abdul Shukor Juraimi, Mohd Norsazwan Ghazali and Muhammad Saiful Ahmad-Hamdani
Additional contact information
Rabiatuladawiyah Ruzmi: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Anis Fadzilah Muhammad Akhir: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Masilamany Dilipkumar: Inbred Rice Program, Rice Research Centre, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), Kepala Batas 13200, Malaysia
Uma Rani Sinniah: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Abdul Shukor Juraimi: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Mohd Norsazwan Ghazali: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Muhammad Saiful Ahmad-Hamdani: Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: Parthenium weed is an invasive weed species of economic importance worldwide. Native to the American tropics, the infestation ability of Parthenium weed to a new habitat is largely influenced by environmental factors. Despite Parthenium weed invasion in Malaysia dated back to 2013, investigation on its ecological behavior is still lacking. Hence, extensive studies on the ecological behavior of two predominant Malaysian Parthenium weed populations were executed. In the Petri dish seed bioassay, germination of Parthenium weed seeds was evident at temperatures up to 80 °C. Parthenium weed was also germinable in saline condition of up to 250 mM, osmotic pressure ranging from −1.2 to 0 MPa, and a wide range of pH (4–9), thus these abiotic conditions are by no means the limiting factors for the Parthenium weed. The pot trial observed that this invasive weed grew readily in various Malaysian soil textures. Parthenium weed successfully emerged from 0 cm to not beyond 2 cm soil burial and retained its emergence capacity under different submergence periods in water. The most favorable soil moisture condition for Parthenium weed emergence was saturated (0 kPa), followed by field capacity (−30–−50 kPa), while no emergence occurred in drought (−70 kPa) as well as flooded soils. These indicate that both Parthenium weed populations possess high tolerance to various abiotic conditions in Malaysia. Results obtained in the current study have crucially become guidelines for the local government authorities in predicting wide spread of Parthenium weed in diverse ecological zones, to further manage this pernicious weed efficiently.

Keywords: ecological niche space; growth responses; invasive plant species; Parthenium weed (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/9/856/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/9/856/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:9:p:856-:d:631014

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().