Floristic composition of weeds, morphological and productive characteristics of different wheat genotypes of alternative small grains in organic production

Abstract

This study was aimed at assessing the floristic composition of weeds, studying properties of different wheat genotypes of alternative small grains (stem height, last internode length and spike length, thousand-grain weight, grain yield) and the relationship between the studied traits and dry weight of weeds in an organic production system. Testing was carried out in a randomized block design with four replications, in a two-year period (2009/2010?2010/2011). The study included one variety of durum wheat Triticum durum (Dolap, G1), the compact wheat Triticum compactum (Bambi, G2) and spelt Triticum spelt (Nirvana, G3). A treatment for maintaining the increase in the biological soil fertility included two different fertilisation variants: T1 ? fertilisation only with microbiological fertiliser as a top dressing (5.0 l ha-1); T2 ? biohumus fertilisation (3.0 t ha-1) and microbiological fertiliser as a top dressing (5.0 l ha-1); T0 ? control ? without the use of fertilisers. The results have shown that the genotype and treatment, as studied factors, very significantly affected the dry weight of weeds, stem height, last internode length and spike length, as well as the yield of different wheat genotypes of alternative small grains, while the effect of their interaction was lower. In terms of the lowinput system, a highly significant negative correlation (r=-0.58) was observed between the stem height and the dry weight of weeds. In addition, a significant negative correlation was noticed between the grain yield and the dry weight of weeds (r=-0.44). These results showed that proper selection of the genotypes with the application of fertilisers could have a significant effect on the weeds and could lead to establishing a stable production in the organic production system.