Talk:Allelopathy

Not limited to plants
Allelopathy is not limited to plants. For instance, there's literature referring to chemical interference between zooplankton as allelopathy. OpenScience (talk) 11:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Font tags
Anybody know why all the nouns in this article are preceded by either font Class = "SpellE" or font class="GramE". These seem to be HMTL tags, but I do not think they relate to Wikipedia, do they? - Marshman 02:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Those tags aren't used in Wikipedia, so you can safely chop them out.--nixie 03:48, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I have been, but also checking other places to see if it was something new I had missed. There are so many, I'm suspicious that the article came from a web site somewhere, but I cannot track it down - Marshman 04:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

When I read it ages ago, it seemed like an essay, I looked at the original authors contribs and they were fastidious about tagging images so I think it's probably the authors original writing and that they possibly moved here from somewhere else online.--nixie 04:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I just tried to clean this up, and provide a bit more insight, as the article is lacking. Hope it worked.

Benefit?
The introductory sentence: "The term allelopathy denotes the production of specific biomolecules by one plant that can induce suffering in, or give benefit to, another plant." Is it really in the definitioon of allelopathy that mutualism could be included? - Marshman 20:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

although mutualism can be seen as a part of allelopathy, it has to be noted that the beauty and, rather, hilarity of the word "juglone" in this context is greatly important to modern day botany, and indeed society as a whole

i like the word "juglone" hee hee...

previous commenter: i agree that juglone is greatly important to modern day botany, being one of the more popular aromatic organic compounds, it is a crucial herbicide which is found very naturally, much to the delight of many local farmers

Criteria in Demonstration of Effect
allelopathy means disease and symbiosis is another article. Perhaps I should install a thesauric link. Symbiosis is more like the relation between fungus (when undergrond) and plant or saprophyte (mistechnical word, but I don't remember the other one) and plant.

In the section about demonstrating the effect, I question the fifth criterion.

"afflicted plants have means of uptake of toxin"

If the toxin blocks needed chemistry from the soil, then I think you still hav one plant promoting disease in another. On the symbiotic relationships, you might note that wormwood suppresses worms in the soil, which might benefit radishes. I could snip Criterion five with a comment, and the whole exception should be visible. Ah:

The toxin must affect the metabolism of a neighbouring plant. Brewhaha@edmc.net 04:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Definition
Sorry, the definition as it stands could not be right, and the reference given as Ref1. is not clearly accessible. According to my feable greek knowledge the -pathy word does not mean science or knowledge, but feeling (corrected). The science that we define is to follow the example of pathology allelopathology. To my mind the definition of allelopathy should be: ...allelopathy is that capability of a plant (...etc etc...), and the process of using this property, that allows it to exert an inhibitive effect on the neighbouring plants within its ecosystem, where the inhibition could stop their germination and/or development... or something similar. Please let me know if you object, or suggest another definition you like better, with your reasons. LouisBB (talk) 16:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Trying to find some reason for my above suggestion and noting that the meaning of pathy is feeling, and psychopathy according to the Scientific American is as follows:
 * "...First described systematically by Medical College of Georgia psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley in 1941, psychopathy consists of a specific set of personality traits and behaviors. Superficially charming, psychopaths tend to make a good first impression on others and often strike observers as remarkably normal. Yet they are self-centered, dishonest and undependable, and at times they engage in irresponsible behavior for no apparent reason other than the sheer fun of it. Largely devoid of guilt, empathy and love, they have casual and callous interpersonal and romantic relationships. Psychopaths routinely offer excuses for their reckless and often outrageous actions, placing blame on others instead. They rarely learn from their mistakes or benefit from negative feedback, and they have difficulty inhibiting their impulses...".


 * Considering all this: for allelopathy a characteristic that inhibits all neighbouring individual to flourish seems a reasonable description. LouisBB (talk) 19:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I got rid of that reference (although the IAS web page contains a lot of past newsletters (and maybe papers and such; I didn't read too carefully), that citation just isn't specific enough to track down). Your suggested definition sounds closer to the mark, although the wording is awkward. I've made a stab at fixing the opening sentence, although the opening paragraph still doesn't read very smoothly. Kingdon (talk) 01:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I like what you have written. I still feel, that because pathy is sentiment, that is a characteristic, and so it ought to be included. Further I added the positive and negative effects, which were in the original definition and several other wiki languages as well.LouisBB (talk) 17:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Book citation without ISBN Number
Ref 1 cites a book taken directly from the French Wikipedia. In both version there is an ISBN No given. In the French version the citation is accepted as it is. Here a remark is put after it and we are directed to discuss the matter here. Unfortunately I don't know what is amiss and what we are discussing. How can the citation of an English work be right on the French Wiki, wrong here? Have I copied something wrongly? Can anyone comment?LouisBB (talk) 22:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it for you, obviously in the french wiki the ISBN has a different use to on the english wiki. I used citebook and now it works fine. Smartse (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Oak trees
Are known for suppressing the growth of grass with chemicals.76.17.118.157 (talk) 07:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggested category
Category:Chemical ecology? Richard001 (talk) 02:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Definition of allelochemical
In an article at Encyclopedia of Life Sciences on chemical ecology, an allelochemical is definied as a semiochemical that mediates interactions between species, which is quite different to the use here. It seems the terminology is somewhat confused between different fields. Richard001 (talk) 02:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is quite a bit of confusion about the term. I was in the middle of editing the article when I came across this statement: "Whittaker and Fenny...defined allelochemicals as all chemical interactions among organisms." First off, it's Feeny, not Fenny. Secondly, this definition is way too broad. I have a feeling that the study was either misinterpreted or badly paraphrased. Fuzzform (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Clarification/Consolidation?
We have this article, Phytoncide (specific variant?), and Heterotelergone, which is apparently a synonym article without any extra content. Would it be appropriate to redirect from there to here, and do something about the diverse categories of these three supposedly related articles (currently botany, chemical ecology, biomolecules, pheremones, toxins, biochemistry stubs, phytochemicals, biologically based therapies, alternative medicine stubs)?--Martin Berka (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Examples of allelopathy: Corn gluten meal
Deleted the following sentence at the end of the examples section: "Corn gluten meal (CGM) is a natural preemergence weed control used in turfgrass, which reduces germination of many broadleaf and grass weeds."

Use of CGM is not an example of allelopathy. It is not an example of plants suppressing growth, by chemical means, of nearby plants. It is an example of use of a plant product as a low efficacy, pre-emergence herbicide. The only possible reason justifying the inclusion of this example would be if it were intended to imply the notion that maize may produce allelopathic effects —a notion that seems implausible to me. In any event, even if this inference did not fail the plausibility test, something that may hint at a possibility of a thing occurring should not be included as an example of said thing actually occurring.

Indeed, Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott at her Horticultural Myths entry on The Myth of Weed-Killing Gluten advances the position that desiccation is a necessary component of the herbicidal action on germinating seeds by CGM. If this is correct, it is not even plausible that the same mechanism of action suppressing seed germination when CGM is used could function in the context of whole, living maize plants producing some alleged allelopathic effect. This, of course, does not prove that maize produces no allelopathic effects (though I suspect any farmer would argue that it doesn't) but it does make it evident that use of CGM as a pre-emergence herbicide does not point to the existence of allelopathic effects of maize plants.

Cosmicaug (talk) 15:05, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Plant Behavior 2022
— Assignment last updated by Gonet99 (talk) 19:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Topic suggestion : downstream/downhill planning considerations
Parallel-to of course conservation in terms of rejuvenation or attempts at ecology restoration where core species are floral components that have allelopathic productive capacities and in order to attempt it allelopathic species must be chosen for a particular ecology or habitat such as for Koalas, there should? or could? be a section in the page ; on the potential of underestimating the risks from allelopathic species in terms of the DIFFERENT rates / durations / toxic-potency of the compounds running leeching, or draining downstream or downhill(1), and (2) distribution via wind; — Dynamics could include comparative differences due to natural migration or via animal species to places they would not or do not normally inhabit, in terms of their normal interactions with or via water, WHEN THEN transported downhill ; --- Physics of it ; faster/slower movement, collection points, concentration levels, wind scattering before toxic-breakdown, etc. --- Context of it ; Surface soil types/dynamics/interactions (especially if an introduced species) Terrain inclination, Rainfall differences, Differences in norms of wind, Climate change complications, Plantations (sometimes) causing unnatural concentration levels, Etc .

49.184.170.237 (talk) 23:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion. Anything like this could be done only with a suitable reliable source. Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)