Study on biostimulant application at oilseed rape damaged by simulated herbicide drift

Nesho Neshev, Dobrinka Balabanova, Mariyan Yanev, Anyo Mitkov, Tonyo Tonev and Andon Vasilev

Abstract: Herbicides are powerful means for weed control in modern agriculture. However, in some cases they can negatively affect the crops, for example after herbicide drift. One suitable approach, aimed to improve recovery of herbicide-damaged crops, is the therapeutic biostimulant application. The aim of our study was to evaluate the potential of the plant biostimulant Amino Expert® to ameliorate recovering of florasulam + aminopyralid-potassium (Derby® Super) – damaged oilseed rape plants. The experiment included five treatments: 1. Untreated plot, accepted as a control. Treatments 2 and 3 represented Derby® Super 100% (of the registered rate) and Derby® Super 20% respectively. The treatments 4 and 5 included two applications – first by the herbicide and second – by the biostimulant four days later. The observations showed that the herbicide drift caused negative effect on oilseed rape plants distinguished by yellowing and growth retardation, which was visible to the beginning of flowering. On the contrary, the plants received an additional therapeutic application by Amino Expert® Impuls recovered faster and finally developed a higher silique number plant-1 as well as biological yield. The physiological parameters such as photosynthetic rate and pigments content also confirmed the ameliorative effect of the plant biostimulant application.

Keywords: Brassica napus L.; herbicide drift; phytotoxicity; plant biostimulant

Date published: 2021-09-16