Allelopathic effects of orange (Citrus sinensis L.) peel essential oil

Jose Pedro Nepomuceno Ribeiro,Maria Inês Salgueiro Lima

doi:10.1590/s0102-33062012000100025

Jose Pedro Nepomuceno Ribeiro, Maria Inês Salgueiro Lima

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-33062012000100025

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Abstract

Crop weeds are the main problem in agriculture, causing a worldwide annual loss of about US$95 billion. The principal method for control is the use of synthetic herbicides. The continued use of these products increases crop costs, reduces crop quality, and leaves toxic residues in the environment, which are a threat to human and livestock health. Therefore, there is a demand for environmentally friendly methods of weed control. The use of allelopathic compounds from crop residues is an alternative. Orange is one of the biggest crops in the world, and its cultivation generates large amounts of residues. There is strong evidence of bioactivity in orange peel essential oil. Therefore, the objective in this work was to verify the allelopathic proprieties of this oil. We extracted the oil from the peels of recently discarded oranges using water vapor flow with a Clevenger extractor, and tested it against the growth of Euphorbia heterophylla L. and Ipomoea grandifolia (Dammer) O'Donell seedlings when placed in contact with the oil vapor. The results were both quantitative and qualitative in the inhibition of the seedlings.

Highlights

Crop weeds are the main problem in agriculture, causing a worldwide an annual loss of about US$95 billion (FAO 2009)
The principal method to control weeds is the use of synthetic herbicides (Hong et al 2004)
The objective of this work was to determine the allelopathic proprieties of orange peel essential oil on two of the most common weeds in Brazil: Euphorbia heterophylla L. and Ipomoea grandifolia (Dammer) O’Donell

Summary

Introduction

Crop weeds are the main problem in agriculture, causing a worldwide an annual loss of about US$95 billion (FAO 2009). The principal method to control weeds is the use of synthetic herbicides (Hong et al 2004). These products have brought unquestionable gains to agriculture, their use increases production cost, reduces crop quality (resulting in less healthy plants and more expensive food) and, contaminates the environment, which is a threat to human and livestock health (Silva et al.2005). There is a growing demand to replace synthetic herbicides with environmentally friendly weed control. The possibility of weed control using allelochemicals is widely recognized (Rice 1995, Souza et al 2002, Piccolo et al 2007, Dayan et al 2009). Allelochemicals are compounds from the secondary metabolism of plants, and present several advantages over herbicides, such as less toxicity, a shorter half

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