Recognize the problem
Family:
Poaceae (grass family).
Common
names: Chinese sprangletop, red sprangletop.
Vietnamese:
Cỏ đuôi phượng, đuôi phụng, Mảnh hòa Trung quốc; Burmese: Daung-mi-pyan, Myet-kha, Myet-sat.
A
strongly tufted, annual or short-lived perennial grass; hollow, erect stems
with glabrous leaves and fibrous roots; up to 120 cm tall.
Leaves:
Smooth, linear, 10−30 cm long; ligule an inconspicuous membrane 1−2 mm long
and deeply divided into hairlike segments.
Flowers:
Loose panicle, 10−40 cm long, with many spike-like slender branches; two rows
of spikelets each 2−3.2 mm long, purplish or green and 4−6 flowered.
Seeds:
Brown, smooth or wrinkled (6-9 mm long);
an abundant seed producer.
Background
Origin:
Native of tropical Asia.
Introduction:
As animal feed.
Habitat:
Occurs in croplands, wetlands, swamps or streams in open lowland regions of
the tropics. It can also grow in heavy or light soils, along streams and
watercourses, in marshy grounds, and in upland and lowland rice fields.
Spread:
By
seeds or vegetatively by rootstocks.
Invades:
Sugarcane, vegetables, cotton, corn, soya beans, sweet potatoes, peanuts,
bananas, pineapples, tea and other crops. Its ability to withstand
waterlogged conditions as well as drained, moist conditions makes it also a
problem weed in rice.
Impacts:
Chinese sprangletop is an important weed in paddy rice, especially in
direct-seeded rice fields. It is also a common weed in upland crop fields. In
India, densities of L. chinensis at 6
plants/m² resulted in mean yield reduction of rice of 44%. The weed is also an
alternative host of the rice blast disease Magnaporthe
oryzae. Studies in the Philippines have confirmed that leaf hoppers such as
Nephotettix virescens, N. nigropictus, N.
malayanus, and Recilia dorsalis,
which transmit rice tungro bacilliform badnavirus (RTBV) and rice tungro
spherical virus (RTSV), feed on weeds such as L. chinensis in fallow fields, which indicates the potential of
such weeds for dispersal of these viruses.
