Identification Notes
EPPO CodeDTTAE |
Life CycleAnnual or sometimes Perennial |
MorphologyC4 species, is a spreading to slightly ascending. Annual, never stoloniferous. Culms up to 50 cm tall, up to 5 noded, geniculately ascending, usually rooting from the lower nodes, thus giving the plants a pseudo-stoloniferous appearance, not rarely forming radiate mats, branched from the lower nodes; internodes cylindrical, glabrous, smooth, striate, exserted above, variable in length; nodes thickened and glabrous. Young shoots cylindrical or rounded. Leaf-sheaths keeled, up to 5 cm long, rather lax, striate, tuberculately hairy on the keel or quite glabrous; ligule membranous, about 1 mm long, ciliolate along the upper edge; Leaf blades flat when mature, rolled when in bud, linear, tapering to a fine point, up to 20 cm long and 12 mm wide, with 3-5 primary nerves on either side of the midrib, glaucous, usually more or less densely tuberculately hairy along the margins and the keel, less conspicuously so on the adaxial surface towards the tip. Inflorescence digitate, composed of 4-8 spreading spikes. Spikes 1.5-6 cm long, on maturity often somewhat recurved, greenish-yellow or pallid; rachis keeled, smooth near the base, scaberulous towards the apex, tip mucroniform and curved. |
Growing seasonJanuary - December |
Germination periodJanuary - December |
Flowering periodJanuary - December |
PropagationBy Seed |
HabitatSandy places of the lowlands. |
Weed potentialDactyloctenium aegyptium is among the 20 most globally widespread weeds (Holm, 1977). This species is reported as a weed of 19 crops in 45 countries. It can be troublesome in crops such as peanuts, cotton, maize or dry-seeded rice (CABI, 2013; Chauhan, 2011). However, it is not considered a noxious or invasive species (CABI, 2013). |
Control measureIt can be controlled through tillage that buries the seeds deeper than 10 cm, through the use of crop residues as mulch, and by herbicides |
Recommended herbicideFenoxaprop-p-ethyl + ethoxysulfuron at 45 g ai /ha provided excellent control of crowfootgrass when applied at the four- (99%) and six-leaf (86%) stage. |
DistributionAfrica and Asia |
Medicinal propertiesThe plant is used as a medicine, food and source of materials for weaving mats and baskets, and making paper. The seed is small but is sometimes used as a famine food. It can be cooked whole or ground into a flour and used to make cakes and gruels. The seedlings are eaten too. In traditional medicine, it has many uses, from curing complaints of the bladder, relieving pain to stopping bleeding. |
References[1] Holm, L. G., 1977. The world's worst weeds: distribution and biology. East-West Center by the Univ. Press of Hawaii. Technology and engineering. [2] Bhagirath Singh Chauhan , 2011. Crowfootgrass (Dactyloctenium aegyptium) germination and response to herbicides in the Philippines. Weed Sci., 59 (4): 512-516 [3] CABI, 2013. Dactyloctenium aegyptium. In: Invasive Species Compendium, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK. |