Isolation of natural herbicidal compound from Lantana camara

ABSTRACT

A flavone glucoside ‘vitexin’ (C₂₁H₂₀O₁₀) was isolated from the leaves of Lantana camara through bioassay-guided isolation. Kupchan method of solvent-solvent partitioning of crude methanol extract from leaves of L. camara gave ethyl acetate, chloroform, hexane and aqueous fraction. Bio-assay with four fractions at 500 ppm, 1000 ppm and 10,000 ppm indicated chloroform fraction to be most potent phytotoxic against weeds (monocot: Phalaris minor, Avena fatua; Dicot: Chenopodium album, Rumex dentatus). Column chromatography of chloroform fraction with hexane: ethyl acetate (60:40) based on TLC profiling with vanillin visualisation stain and subsequent bioassays indicated sub-fraction (iii) of fraction 23 as most growth inhibitory. The chemical structure of the isolated compound was identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Shimadzu GC-MS-QP2010 ultra). The natural herbicidal activity of the isolated compound against various weeds in laboratory and field conditions is suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Weeds in wheat crop
• allelopathy for weed management
• herbicidal compounds
• spectroscopic techniques
• flavonoids

Acknowledgments

Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan is duly acknowledged for providing the opportunity to visit the School of Agriculture and Food Science (SAFS), The University of Queensland, Australia where compound analysis was carried out.

Competing interests

Manuscript is derived from our conference abstract “Isolation of vitexin as natural bio-herbicide from Lantana camara leaves” presented at Botany 2019, San Pedro (July, 2019) Link: https://2019.botanyconference.org/engine/search/index.php?func=detail&aid=133.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.