Immanuel Lalo

AGR 133

Metalaxyl

INTRODUCTION

As weeds are more competitive and highly disruptive to crops as they are more
competitive and persistent, farmers ought to invent and innovate methods to control these
unwanted organisms as these are more adapted in absorbing nutrients and water in its
surroundings. A method that is being practiced today is allowing crops to have the advantage
during its earlier stages of development with the help of plant growth regulators or root growth
enhancement while also acting as a fungicide. A chemical that provides these benefits us
Metalaxy or Methyl-N-(2-methoxyacetyl)-N-(2,6-xylyl-D,L alanine. Although now, there are
problems on resistance with fungi, the use for root growth enhancement is still used as the
chemical is generally cheaper than other control measures.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the exercise, the student should be able to:

1. Describe the effect of metalaxyl on early root and shoot development of selected crops.
2. Indicate the rate of application of metalaxyl that resulted in increased root and or shoot
growth in the selected crops used in this study
3. Discuss the potential use of metalaxyl in weed management.

MATERIALS

1. Metalaxyl
2. Graduated cylinder
3. Beaker
4. Petri dishes
5. Tap water
6. Filter paper
7. Ruler
8. Rice seeds

PROCEDURES

1. Each group should prepare the following concentrations of metalaxyl: 0, 25, 50, 75, 100,
200 ppm.
2. Fifteen milliliters of the different metalaxyl concentrations should be placed into petri
dishes lined with filter paper. At least 3 petri dishes should be maintained for each
 concentration of metalaxyl. A control treatment (using tap water) should be included for
comparison.
3. Each petri dish should contain 10 seeds of corn and rice.
4. The experiment will be conducted using the completely randomized designed with 3
replications. Data that will be generated will be subjected to statistical analysis and
differences among treatments designed by DMRT.
5. The following data/information will be obtained after one week:
a. Averaged number of roots.
b. Averaged length of roots and shoot
c. Fresh weight of roots and shoots
d. Illustrations of differences in root system of the crop seedlings relative to the
concentration of metalaxyl

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

For rice, the following are the final results that were observed on Oct 30, 2017:

CORN
Treatment (ppm) R1 R2 R3
S R S R S R
0 14.5 15.7 14.2 16.2 12.5 15.6
25 4.8 12.2 1.5 14 9.3 9.5
50 1.5 1.2 3.5 3.7 5.7 5.0
75 6.0 10.5 6.6 9.8 9.6 7.9
100 4.5 11.3 8.2 15.1 12.0 7.4
200 5.1 6.3 7.2 5.3 7.3 6.5
Table 1. Average primary root length, secondary root length, secondary root number, and shoot length of corn for 0,
25, 50, 75, 100 and 200 ppm treatment of metalaxyl.

RICE
Treatment (ppm) R1 R2 R3
S R S R S R
0 0.5 1.2 0.7 2.2 0.6 0.6
25 0.7 1.2 3.5 4.3 3.2 4.3
50 0.5 0.4 3.6 8.1 8.1 -
75 1.6 1.8 1.0 2.2 2.6 1.5
100 3.2 1.7 0.6 0.4 3.2 1.0
200 0.5 0.3 0 0.3 0 0.7
Table 1. Average primary root length, secondary root length, secondary root number, and shoot length of rice for 0,
25, 50, 75, 100 and 200 ppm treatment of metalaxyl

Deducing from the averaged data values on the table for the corn and rice seeds that
were treated and observed for a week, the best result taken for corn was when it had no
treatment of Metalaxyl or at 0 ppm of Metalaxyl while it was at about 50 ppm of Metalaxy for
rice.

CONCLUSION
After a week of treatment to different Metalaxyl concentrations, it was observed that
there is a certain optimum concentration of Metalaxyl treatment that can enhance the growth of
the root and shoot of rice and corn plants. The optimum range discovered to promote growth
was 100 ppm for corn as deduced from this data although Thanomthin, C.s research on 2004
that was also conducted in the University of Philippines Los Baos, concludes that corn seeds
soaked in 50 ppm of Metalxyl solution for 24 hours produces seedlings with longer primary roots
than the untreated and other solutions that also increases corn yield by 12.6% while in rice, it
was also observed that the treatment of 50ppm of Metalaxyl for rice seeds, enhanced the root
growth systems of the seeds but also as a research in disease control for rice done in Louisiana
in 1988 by Rush and Schneider, the treatment would also benefit the crop of a 30% increase in
stand over or ability to continually grow or develop despite stresses such as flooding or wind;
also, seeds treated by metalaxyl also controls seedling blight caused by seedborn and soilborn
fungi due to its fungicide nature.

REFERENCE

Thanomthin, C. (2004). Effect of metalaxyl on the root system of corn (Zea mays L.) and its
possible use for improved crop competitive ability. University of the Philippines Los
Baos, College, Laguna. Retrieved from http://agris.fao.org/agris-
search/search.do?recordID=PH2006000414

Rush, M. and Schneider, R. (1988). Chemical Control of Seedling diseases of rice in Lousiana.
Lousiana. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-0775-
1_4