Plant Interactions

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 Introduction

• In agriculture, as in most plant systems, including natural

plant systems, one is not usually dealing with individual
plants alone.
• In most instances we deal with populations or communities
of plants i.e. more than one!

• Within a one ha field of wheat one may be looking at a

population of 2 - 3 million plants. And these plants, many of
which will be weeds, affect or interact with one another in
many ways. 2
• In agriculture at least, these interactions are very
important to the successful functioning of the plant
community so that a worthwhile product is produced.

• It is very important to gain a good understanding of how

plants interact with one another, because the success of
the plant community depends on it.

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 NATURAL VS ARTIFICIAL PLANT COMMUNITIES
Natural plant communities are characteristically biologically diverse, i.e.,
they are composed of many different species of plants

This is somewhat a general statement and there are obvious exceptions.

For example, Cynodon dactylon, will sometimes form almost pure
monocultures.

• Plants tend to be scattered across an area and subject only to natural

disturbances such as grazing, fire, drought etc.

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Agricultural plants, however, tend to be grown as monocultures i.e. single species
communities, or cultures of several species, particularly in the case of pastures
(though some weed infested farming fields are amongst the most biologically
diverse areas) and often in rows.

• As well as being subject to natural disturbances, these communities are also

subjected to disturbances such as intensive livestock grazing, irrigation,
cultivation, chemical application, slashing or mowing etc.

• In an agricultural plant community some plants will be considered to be

desirable, and therefore every effort will be made to enhance their survival and
growth, whilst other plants (typically called weeds) will be seen to be
undesirable, and efforts will be made to remove them from the community,
suppress their growth and cause their deaths. 5
 Weed-crop interactions
• As alluded to, monocultures are rare in natural
environment.
• Plants will grow in a communal system.
• Practising monoculture is tantamount to going against
nature.
• Interactions can be in any way that one benefits from the
interaction whilst the other is harmed or the two benefit
or both might be harmed.
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 How plant interact
• It is customary to speak of plants in a community as 'competing' with
each other, however, this term is inadequate to describe all the events
which occur within and between the plants of communities.

• The better term to describe the interactions which take place between
plants when occupying the same space, whether concurrently or over a
period of time is 'interference' (Lovett et al 1982).

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 Biologically possible interactions among organisms
TYPE SPECIES A SPECIES B RELATIONSHIP

NEUTRALISM No effect No effect No interaction

PROTOCOOPERATION Gains Gains Mutually beneficial, no obligatory

relationship e.g. Rhizobia/Legumes
MUTUALISM Gains Gains Mutually beneficial, obligatory relationship

COMMENSALISM Gains No effect Commensal gains with no cost to host e.g.,

mother & baby

COMPETITION. Allelopathy can be Loses Loses Populations inhibit one another. This is
included here the most crucial weed-crop
interaction

AMENSALISM No effect Loses Species B is affected by Species A with no

impact on Species A
PARASITISM/PREDATION Gains Loses Parasites/predators lives off host/prey
Weeds living off crops is a –
Animals feeding on weed seed is a +
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 Four components of interference may be defined:
1. A plant may act as an alternate or alternative host.
• A pest or disease organism harboured by one plant may interfere with
another plant in the community e.g. take-all disease of wheat (Triticum
aestivum) may be carried over on other weedy grasses such as wild oats
(Avena fatua).
• A vastly different example might be that of blackberry (Rubus sp.) which
harbours rabbits which then graze on the far more palatable pasture
species available around the blackberry thicket.
2. Climatic modification, resulting from differences in morphology and
growth habit of plants in a community, may result in interference e.g., trees
along a shelter belt (e.g. bamboo) may form a wind break for other more
fragile plants (e.g. maize).

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3. Competition, the most commonly used term, should properly be
used to describe what happens when a plant or plants in a
community successfully compete for and thus deplete the
environment of vital resources, such as soil nutrients, water and
sunlight, disadvantaging their competitors.

4. Allelopathy involves the addition to the environment of a

chemical or chemicals which facilitate interference by the plant
which produces them. It should be noted that allelopathy, in
contrast to competition, depends upon additions being made to the
environment e.g. Datura stramonium, common thornapple, adding
the alkaloids scopolamine and hyascyamine.
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• All the components of interference are significant, their relative importance
depending upon the interactions of all the factors which affect a plant
community.
• In managing a plant production system, all of these components must be
taken into account.
• For example, weed management, a farmer may have to consider that a
population of a weed species too small to effect significant competition may
yet be interfering because it is supporting insect pests or a disease which
could attack their crop.
• Similarly, a farmer may consider cutting down a row of trees along the edge
of a cropping paddock because they obviously compete with the crop in that
vicinity, but the hedge may also provide a wind break which prevents lodging
(or blowing over) of the cereal crop.

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• In terms of management of crop production systems, it is
the allelopathic and competitive components of
interference which offer the greatest opportunity to the
farmer to manipulate them to the farmer's advantage.

TASK
Find a weed infested area and attempt to identify by careful
observation how they are interfering with other plants, if at
all.

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ALLELOPATHY
•True or False
•Some of the depressive effects of a plant upon
its neighbours are so striking that an
interpretation based on the monopolisation of
resources (competition) has often seemed
inadequate.

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• Here is a quote from Lovett and Hoult (1995).

“The reputation of barley as a ‘smother crop’ has been

attributed to competition for environmental resources
such as water and plant nutrients. However, in the absence of
such competition, barley still inhibits germination and
growth of some weeds. Overland (1966) showed that the
inhibitory activity was selective among broad-leaved
plants, chickweed (Stellaria media) being more severely
inhibited than shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), and
hypothesized that phytotoxins were involved. This was an early
indication that allelopathic activity in barley might have
potential for development in protection of the crop.”
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 Allelopathy definitions

•Mutual influence of plants (higher plants &

microorganisms) by the release of substances
which may be inhibiting or stimulating (Moliwes,
1998).

•Allelopathy: two Greek words:

allelon- of each other; pathos- to suffer
= mean 'mutual harm'. 15
• Allelopathic substances: virtually universal in plants and
plant communities and their effects have been observed
in a wide range of communities and climates.

• Communities e.g., associations of crops, pastures and

weeds.

• Separating allelopathy from competition in the field not

easy. 16
• Allelopathy – a natural ecological phenomenon

• Involves synthesis and release of plant bioactive

compounds which are known as allelochemicals.

• Allelochemicals can trigger a number of responses in

other plant species:
i. inhibition of germination,
ii. abnormal seedling growth,
iii. failure of root elongation, and
iv. cellular disorganization.
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• To some extent, allelochemicals may [the
phenomenon may be overrated]:
i. act as natural pesticides and
ii. resolve problems of soil and environmental pollution,
iii. slow down development of herbicide resistance in
weed biotypes,
iv. reduce human health defects caused by the
indiscriminate use of synthetic herbicides.
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• Allelopathy may be employed for weed management in field
crops through:

i. mixed cropping,
ii. intercropping,
iii. use of surface mulch,
iv. soil incorporation of plant residue,
v. allelopathic aqueous extracts,
vi. combined application of allelopathic aqueous extracts
with lower herbicide doses, and
vii. crop rotation.

Art though thinking research topic?

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• An example of allelopathy in the real world comes from the tree
Tamarix aphylla, in Israel it is prevalent in the coastal plain and in
the Negev desert.

• It normally grows in xeric (dry) areas with 100 mm of annual

rainfall and is recognised as a salt-excreting tree.

• It has been observed in arid localities that even in wet years, no

plants of any kind grew under the canopies of large Tamarix
trees.
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• Locally: Lantana camara, Mimosa pigra

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• True allelopathy- is the • Functional allelopathy- is
release into the the release into the
environment of environment of substances
compounds that are toxic that are toxic as a result of
in the form they are transformation by
produced by the living microorganisms
plants (Aldrich, 1984).

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 Allelopathy- How does it work?
• The chemicals concerned are often referred to as secondary
compounds, being offshoots of pathways which have important
functions in the primary metabolism of plants.
• A number of these substances are highly volatile, for example,
terpenes which occur in Eucalyptus spp. and in other aromatic plants.
• Others may leak in solution from roots or leaves or be washed from
leaves by rainfall.
• Ultimately, most of the substances produced by leaves are likely to be
washed into the soil.
• This presents difficulties to research workers because chemicals in the
soil are often very rapidly modified by microorganisms.
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Factors affecting allelopathy
1. Type of residue i.e. species of plant and
therefore presumably the secondary compounds.
2. Degree of residue breakdown and plant part
involved

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Factors affecting allelopathy

3. Concentration of secondary
compound. Some compounds,
particularly at low concentrations can
actually stimulate germination and
growth

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 Factors affecting allelopathy
4. The receptive species, for example, various weeds may behave differently
to the one compound.

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 Factors affecting allelopathy
5. Soil type. For example, under controlled conditions, a high clay content
appeared to adsorb common thornapple alkaloids which behaved as cations and
reduced the amount of alkaloid free in the soil and thereby reduced its
phytoxicity on root elongation in sunflower.
6. Plant stress. Moisture stress for example, can increase the concentration of
secondary compounds in a plant.
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• Allelopathy is a component of interference receiving great research interest at
the present time.
• The chemicals involved are not only active between plants but may also defend
the plant which produces them against attack by insects, other pests and
disease.
• The content of the chemicals concerned is usually greater in weeds than in
crops, contributing to the success of weeds in interference. 32
• There are several ways in which allelopathic plants can release the
chemicals into the environment;
a) Volatilisation (true allelopathy)
• Chemicals are released in form of gas through the stomata into the
surrounding environment.
b) Leaching (functional allelopathy)
• Plants will drop or loose their leaves and other plant parts which
store protective chemicals.
• These decompose through the help of microorganism and then get
released to the soil.
c) Exudation (true allelopathy)
• Some plants release defensive chemicals through the roots, the
plants growing near them die if they are detrimental
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 Competition

Will be dealt with under cultural control practices

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