Effect of some medicinal oil with adjuvant on maize, sunflower and sorghum productivity and associated weeds

The aim of this study is to evaluate the applied basil and camphor oils for weed control and phytotoxic effects on some field crops compared to chemical and mechanical weed control as well as un-weeded check. Wire house and field experiments were conducted during the period from 2020 to 2023 in the experimental farm and wire house of the Weed Research Central Laboratory at Giza Research Station, Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Egypt, in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in four replicates. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that weed control treatments were significantly reduced the number and fresh weight of some weed species across all experiments. Improvement of maize, sunflower, and sorghum without any phytotoxic effect of essential oils or herbicides under study, except sorghum crop was sensitive to the herbicides used in the study. Camphor and basil oils were more effective on Ipomea eriocarpa , Setaria virids , Trianthema portulacastrum , Cyperus rotundus , and Cynodon dactylon . The reduction in fresh weight of weed species is about 80–100% under the low weed seed bank of the soil and sensitive weed species, and less effect under the high soil weed seed bank, especially by I. eriocarpa and S. virids , due to the emergence of these weed species after applying these oils. Finley camphor and sweet basil oil can be used for weed control under low infestation by weeds and supplemented by one hand hoeing in the case of high infestation by I. eriocarpa .