Herbicidal effects of marine animal, Trochus tentorium from gulf of mannar, southeastern India

Abstract

The plants, animals and microorganisms of the marine environment with their wide range of chemical diversity are still an unexplored resource for the development of new agro-chemical agents. Works related to the herbicidal activity of the marine organisms are too scanty. Compared to the search for new pharmaceutical compounds, very little effort has been devoted to the exploration of agrochemical compounds from marine natural products. In the present study, the herbicidal activity of the crude extracts and partial purified fractions of Trochus tentorium was assayed using the duckweed, Lemna minor L. following a bench top bioassay. The crude acetone extract of T. tentorium decayed the fronds of Lemna plants at the concentration of 1000 mg mL -1 on the 4th day, while the results of same concentration of ethyl acetate, dichloromethane and methanol extracts showed decay of the plants on the 5th day of the experiment. This study reveals that the column-purified acetone fraction of the gastropod was able to decay L. minor to a better degree in comparison with the crude extracts. Hence, from the present study, it was noted that not only the 100% acetone fractions but also the 20:80 hexane: methanol and 80:20 acetone: methanol fractions showed a higher degree of activity against L. minor. © 2012 Academic Journals Inc.