Breeding cereal crops for enhanced weed suppression: optimizing allelopathy and competitive ability

Abstract

Interest in breeding grain crops with improved weed suppressive ability is growing in response to the evolution and rapid expansion of herbicide resistant populations in major weeds of economic importance, environmental concerns, and the unmet needs of organic producers and smallholder farmers without access to herbicides. This review is focused on plant breeding for weed suppression; specifically, field and laboratory screening protocols, genetic studies, and breeding efforts that have been undertaken to improve allelopathy and competition in rice, wheat, and barley. The combined effects of allelopathy and competition determine the weed suppressive potential of a given cultivar, and research groups worldwide have been working to improve both traits simultaneously to achieve maximum gains in weed suppression. Both allelopathy and competitive ability are complex, quantitatively inherited traits that are heavily influenced by environmental factors. Thus, good experimental design and sound breeding procedures are essential to achieve genetic gains. Weed suppressive rice cultivars are now commercially available in the U.S. and China that have resulted from three decades of research. Furthermore, a strong foundation has been laid during the past 10 years for the breeding of weed suppressive wheat and barley cultivars.