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AOBPreview originally published online on March 28, 2008
Annals of Botany 2008 101(9):1311-1318; doi:10.1093/aob/mcn040
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Canopy Architectural Model to Study the Competitive Ability of Chickpea with Sowthistle

S-Zahra-Hosseini Cici1,2,3,4,*, Steve Adkins3,4 and Jim Hanan1

1 Advanced Computational Modeling Center, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, 4072, Australia
2 School of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
3 School of Land and Food, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, 4072, Australia
4 Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Australian Weed Management

* For correspondence. E-mail z_h_cici{at}yahoo.com

Received: 28 August 2007    Returned for revision: 27 September 2007    Accepted: 25 February 2008    Published electronically: 28 March 2008

Background and Aims: Improving the competitive ability of crops is a sustainable method of weed management. This paper shows how a virtual plant model of competition between chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus) can be used as a framework for discovering and/or developing more competitive chickpea cultivars.

Methods: The virtual plant models were developed using the L-systems formalism, parameterized according to measurements taken on plants at intervals during their development. A quasi-Monte Carlo light-environment model was used to model the effect of chickpea canopy on the development of sowthistle. The chickpea–light environment–sowthistle model (CLES model) captured the hypothesis that the architecture of chickpea plants modifies the light environment inside the canopy and determines sowthistle growth and development pattern. The resulting CLES model was parameterized for different chickpea cultivars (viz. ‘Macarena’, ‘Bumper’, ‘Jimbour’ and ‘99071-1001’) to compare their competitive ability with sowthistle. To validate the CLES model, an experiment was conducted using the same four chickpea cultivars as different treatments with a sowthistle growing under their canopy.

Results and Conclusions: The growth of sowthistle, both in silico and in glasshouse experiments, was reduced most by ‘99071-1001’, a cultivar with a short phyllochron. The second rank of competitive ability belonged to ‘Macarena’ and ‘Bumper’, while ‘Jimbour’ was the least competitive cultivar. The architecture of virtual chickpea plants modified the light inside the canopy, which influenced the growth and development of the sowthistle plants in response to different cultivars. This is the first time that a virtual plant model of a crop–weed interaction has been developed. This virtual plant model can serve as a platform for a broad range of applications in the study of chickpea–weed interactions and their environment.

Key words: Plant architecture, virtual plant modelling, L-systems formalism, crop/weed competition, integrated weed management, chickpea, Cicer arietinum, sowthistle, Sonchus oleraceus


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