Abstract:The preemergence herbicidal activity of corn gluten meal (CGM) was evaluated under non-sterile and sterile conditions, the ammonia contents before and after herbicidal activity assay were analyzed as well. CGM efficiently reduced the root growth of 8 germinating plant seeds, and the radicle elongation of all tested plants was entirely suppressed at 14mg/mL CGM treatment. However, lower radicle inhibition rate ( <34%) of CGM was found under sterile condition. The ammonia content in the CGM media increased greatly from very low initial content (≤0.01mg/L) to 3.78-40.52mg/L after the herbicidal test under non-sterile condition while ammonia content did not change under sterile conditions, indicating that the preemergence herbicidal activity of CGM was due to the phytotoxic of ammonia released from CGM by microbial degradation.