- Source: Alopecurus myosuroides
Alopecurus myosuroides is an annual grass, native to Eurasia, found in moist meadows, deciduous forests, and on cultivated and waste land. It is also known as slender meadow foxtail, black-grass, twitch grass, and black twitch.
Description
It can grow up to 80 cm high, often growing in tufts. The leaves are hairless. Leaf sheath is smooth, green to purplish in colour. The leaf blade is pointed, 3 to 16 cm long and 2-8 millimeters wide, green, rough in texture. The spikelets are cylindrical, yellow-green, pale green or purple in colour, and may be 1-12 centimeters long.
It flowers from May to August.
Weed status
In the UK, where it is known to farmers as black-grass, it is a major weed of cereal crops as it produces a large amount of seed which is shed before the crop is cut. It has developed resistance to a range of herbicides used to control it. Herbicide resistance testing is often needed to understand what herbicides will be effective at treating it. It can occur at very high densities, competing with the crop and seriously reducing the yield of crops such as wheat and barley if not controlled.
The seeds have a short period of dormancy and viability, and the numbers may be reduced by surface cultivation after harvest.
References
UK Weeds Resistance Action Group - advice on Managing and Preventing Herbicide Resistance
Jepson Manual Treatment
Plants of the World Online
USDA Plants Profile
Grass Manual Treatment
USGS Northeast Wetland Flora Profile
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Flora Lebanon
- Alopecurus myosuroides
- Alopecurus
- Alopecurus pratensis
- Claviceps purpurea
- List of flora of Indiana
- Urocystis alopecuri
- List of flora of Ohio
- Herbicide
- British NVC community OV8
- Agriculture in the United Kingdom