Family: Orobanchaceae
Synonyms: Phelipanche aegyptiaca (Pers.) Pomel
Root parasitic plant with branched stem up to 40 cm tall. The plant has two growth cycles, one subterranean and the other one aerial, being the first the longest one. The weed exerts major damage to crops during the subterranean cycle. The plant takes resources for its life from host crops.
It propagates via seeds. Seed germinates in the presence of warm soil temperature, moisture, oxygen and root exudates.
It grows well in light textured and poor organic matter soils. Moisture is essential at the time of seed germination, after it the parasite will live taking water and food resources from the host plant.
It parasites solanaceous crops, such as tomato, potato, and also lentil and cabbage, and it is widely spread in the Mediterranean countries and in the Near East.
There is no single technology to control Orobanche aegyptiaca. Various procedures should be carried out to effectively reduce seed bank in soil and its weed stand, such as:
- Use of trap crops: cotton, maize, sorghum. One-season rotation with any of these crops will not bring any substantial reduction of the weed, no less than 2-year rotation is required to exhaust part of the seed bank available in soil.
- Use of N-fertilizers. Nitrogen really inhibits the growth of the weed, the problem is that not all susceptible crops accept high rates of N.
- Hand-pulling. In areas of small farmers, this manual procedure may also reduce Orobanche stand in long term.
- Use of herbicides. There is the perspective of the use of some sulfonyl urea herbicides, such as chlorsulfuron and triasulfuron.
Countries: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Nepal, Syria, Sudan
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