The Journal of Indian Botanical Society

An experiment was conducted to understand the growth effects (inhibitory or stimulatory) of aqueous extract obtained from Melastoma malabathricum L. on three economical important agricultural crops viz., Oryza sativa L. (Rice), Cicer arietinum L. (Chickpea) and Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek (Mung bean). The experiment was carried out in sterilized petri dishes with time duration 4 days, 8 days and 12 days in room temperatures. The effect of different concentration on targets crops were observed and compared to control. Our results showed that Melastoma malabathricum L. aqueous leaf extracts caused significant suppression on seed germination, radical and plumule elongation of three selective receptor crops proportionally increases with the increase of percent of donor plant extract content. However, bioassay studies confirmed that the progression of inhibition of germinated seedling elongation (both radical and plumule) and decrease of biomass proportional to the time duration at the higher concentration. The higher concentration showed the strongest inhibitory effect whereas the lower concentration showed stimulatory effect in some cases. Among the three targeted crops, Oryza sativa was strongly affected by the higher concentration (T₅) of Melastoma malabathricum L. aqueous leaf extracts. The bioassay results remarkably suggest that allelopathic effect may be a possible mechanism controlling the inhibitory effect on seed germination and germinated seedling growths of agricultural crops.