Allelopathic aquatic plants for aquatic weed management

This report presents, results of a feasibility study of use of allelopathic aquatic plants for aquatic weed management. In order to establish a list of potential allelopathic plants, we selected 16 aquatic plants native to the southeastern United States and subjected them to two bioassays — one involving lettuce seedlings and one involving the aquatic plantLemna minor as the target species. The lettuce seedling bioassay was selected because it is a widely used, experimentally simple assay to determine allelopathic activity. However, it uses lettuce, a terrestrial plant, as the target species, and thus may be less appropriate for use with aquatic plants. TheL. minor assay involves an aquatic plant as the target species and so is more appropriate for our goals, but it is experimentally much more complex and time-consuming. The plants selected for study wereBrasenia schreberi, Cabomba caroliniana, Ceratophyllum demersum, Eleocharis acicuiaris, Eleocharis obf usa, Hydrilla verticillata, Juncus repens, Limnobium spongia, Myriophyllum aquaticum, Myriophyllum spicatum, Najas guadalupensis, Nymphaea odorata, Nymphoides cordata, Potamogeton foliosus, Sparganium americanum, and Val/isneria americana.Nymphaea odorata (leaves and petioles) inhibited 78 % of lettuce seedling radicle growth and 98 % ofL. minor frond production. Brasenia schreberi inhibited 82 % of lettuce seedling radicle growth and 68 % of L. minor frond production. These results suggest thatN. odorata andB. schreberi are both highly inhibitory and are therefore candidates for use in aquatic weed management. Results also suggest that the simple lettuce seedling assay is a reasonable first “easy” one to use in an attempt to determine allelopathic potential of aquatic plants.