Soil weed seedbank under different cropping systems of middle Indo-Gangetic Plains

Abstract

Trees on agricultural fields can have a positive or negative impact on weed seedbank (WSB) due to diverse environmental and soil characteristics. Therefore, soil samples were drawn in six cropping systems [two agroforest systems (AFS): guava, mango; three horticulture systems (HCS): guava, mango, Indian gooseberry; and annual crop system (ACS)] at two landscape positions (lowland and upland) and two soil depths (0–15 cm and 15–30 cm) using factorial randomised block design each replicated three times. Results showed that guava-AFS had the highest WSB of different categories in general and individual weed species in particular, except for Eragrostis pilosa and Dacty-loctenium aegyptium. Simultaneously, guava-AFS also showed the maximum Shannon-Weaver, species richness and Simpson index and was low in Whittaker statistics (βW ). The species evenness varied non-significantly with the cropping systems. Similarly, the landscape position had no discernible effect on any weed diversity indices; however lowland landscape position was dominated by Cyperus spp. and E. pilosa, while the upland by Phyllanthus niruri. Fur-thermore, with the exception of βW, the WSB and diversity indices were found to be higher on the topsoil (0–15 cm). Our study establishes that the AFS system in the semi-arid sub-tropics has a more diverse WSB indicating a heal-thy system, as opposed to HCS, which has a dominance of certain weed species, opening the door for more severe infestation of invasive weed species. © 2022, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences. All rights reserved.