Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops & Products journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Appraisal of phytotoxic, cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of essential oil of a medicinal plant Vitex negundo Mohd Issa a , Shikha Chandel b , Harminder Pal Singh a, *, Daizy Rani Batish b, *, Ravinder Kumar Kohli b,c , Surender Singh Yadav d , Amita Kumari e a Department of Environment Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India b Department of Botany, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India c Central University of Punjab, Mansa Road, Bathinda 151001, India d Department of Botany, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak 124001, India e Food and Nutraceutical Division, CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur 176061, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Essential oil Phytoxicity Cytotoxicity Genotoxicity Sustainable agriculture Vitex negundo ABSTRACT The excessive use of synthetic herbicides in agriculture has steered the development of resistance in weeds along with the production of toxic effects on the environment. Essential oils (EOs) are emerging as an alternative to the synthetic herbicides or agrochemicals because of their effectiveness and easy degradability. A study was, therefore, planned to investigate the phytotoxic, cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of EO extracted from Vitex negundo L., a medicinally important plant. Chemical characterization using GC–MS revealed that V. negundo EO is rich in sesquiterpenes with β-Caryophyllene (27.80 %) as the major compound. The phytotoxic effect of the EO (0.10–2.50 mg/mL) was investigated against two agricultural weeds: Avena fatua L. and Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) P. Beauv. Germination percentage and early seedling growth (coleoptile and root length) decreased significantly with an increase in EO concentration in both the test weeds. The cytotoxic potential of the oil was explored in Allium cepa L. by accessing mitotic index (MI) and chromosomal aberration percentage, whereas the effect on DNA integrity was evaluated as a percentage of head DNA (HDNA) and tail DNA (TDNA), tail moment (TM) and olive tail moment (OTM). EO treatment altered the cell cycle as evinced by a significant decrease in MI and an increase in aberration percentage at concentrations ≥ 0.05 and ≥ 0.025 mg/mL, respectively. In response to 0.10 mg/mL EO treatment, HDNA decreased by 9.37 %, whereas an increase of ∼1.67, 4.70 and 1.80 fold was observed in TDNA, TM and OTM, respectively. The study concludes that V. negundo EO induced cytotoxic and genotoxic effects might be accountable for the phytotoxicity of EO against weeds, and thus holds a good po- tential for use under sustainable agricultural systems. 1. Introduction Agricultural losses due to various reasons, mainly pests and weeds, have been endowing pressure on the farmers to increase productivity in order to feed the growing global population (Carvalho, 2017). Over the past few decades, the use of chemical herbicides to reduce agricultural losses is at ramp. Excessive use of these chemicals has many implica- tions on both abiotic as well as biotic components of the environment. These chemicals add to environmental degradation, produce tox- icological effects in animals, and also pave the way for the emergence of resistant weed varieties (Carvalho, 2017; Seiber et al., 2018). There- fore, researchers around the globe are looking for ecofriendly and more effective alternatives to the synthetic herbicides (Beck et al., 2018). Essential oil (EO) is one such natural plant product that has been documented to have tremendous scope of being used as bio-herbicide, bio-pesticide, anti-microbial agent, insect repellent, etc. (Batish et al., 2008; Isman et al., 2011). The composition and quantity of EO depends on various factors like extraction method, developmental stage and part of the plant being used, soil characteristics, and the climate (Marques and Kaplan, 2011; Noumi et al., 2018). Generally, two to three major compounds comprise ∼60-70 % of the total constituents of oil (Bakkali et al., 2008). Various EOs are being used in traditional medicine, pharmaceutical industries, food packaging, and cosmetics since decades (Holley and Patel, 2005). In addition, many studies on the appraisal of phytotoxic effects of EOs extracted from plants like Syzygium ar- omaticum, Eucalyptus citriodora, Artemisia scoparia, Tagetes erecta, Hyptis https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.112083 Received 31 August 2019; Received in revised form 19 November 2019; Accepted 30 December 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: hpsingh_01@yahoo.com (H. Pal Singh), daizybatish@yahoo.com (D. Rani Batish). Industrial Crops & Products 145 (2020) 112083 0926-6690/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T