Echinochloa glabrescens: How to Spot and Control It in Palay
Echinochloa glabrescens is an upright grass weed that sprouts right alongside rice seedlings in irrigated and rainfed lowland fields of the Philippines. It is a close relative of barnyard grass and just as hard to tell from young palay. This page shows how to spot it, how much harm it does and how to control it.
What Is Echinochloa glabrescens?
Echinochloa glabrescens is a grass weed with no common English name, so most farmers use local names. You may hear telebisyon, antena, dawa dawa, marapagay, paray paray or humay humay. A name like humay humay hints at how much it looks like rice. It grows in both irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields, so watch for it in transplanted and direct seeded crops alike.
This weed is an annual, and it spreads only by seed. Its seedlings come up at the same time as the rice, both in transplanted fields and after direct seeding. When the seeds ripen, they drop from the panicle onto the soil. So the plants you miss this season leave plenty of seed waiting for your next crop.
| Name | Echinochloa glabrescens |
|---|---|
| Family | Poaceae (Graminae) |
| Weed group | Grasses (see the three groups) |
| Local names | Telebisyon, antena, dawa dawa, marapagay, paray paray, humay humay |
| Life cycle | Annual |
| Spreads by | Seeds |
| Where it grows | Irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields |
How to Identify Echinochloa glabrescens
Like other grasses, it has round, hollow stems with clear joints, or nodes. This plant grows upright and can reach 100 cm. Fold back a leaf where it joins the stem. Like its cousins in the Echinochloa group, it has no ligule there, while rice has one. Later, look for a narrow panicle shaped like a pyramid, with many short spikes. The spikelets are green to purplish and fall off when ripe. Awns, if any, are about 1 cm long.
- Upright clumps stand among the rice and can reach up to 100 cm.
- Look alike tip: there is no ligule at the leaf collar, but rice always has one.
- Narrow seed heads shaped like a pyramid, each one carrying many short spikes.
- Spikelets turn from green to purplish and drop to the ground when ripe.
- Awns stay short, about 1 cm, and some plants have no awns at all.
- Compared with barnyard grass, it stands shorter and has a narrower panicle with much shorter awns.
Why It Hurts Your Palay
Echinochloa glabrescens competes hard with rice, most of all when its seedlings grow up with the rice seedlings. This happens both at transplanting and after direct seeding. Since the two start together, the weed takes its share of water, light and fertilizer from the very first days.
The losses climb as the weed spreads. At an infestation level of 5 percent, average rice yield loss is 6 percent. At 40 percent infestation, the loss reaches 73 percent. It also feeds the rice bug and the rice black bug when no rice is in the field. As a result, these pests stay close by and move into your next crop.
How to Control Echinochloa glabrescens
- Check hills closely in the first weeks after planting. Fold back the leaf collar, and pull any plant that has no ligule.
- Weed before the panicles ripen. The spikelets drop when mature, so late weeding leaves the seed already in your soil.
- Weed the seedbed well before you pull the punla, because its seedlings can ride along with rice seedlings into the field.
- Keep a steady layer of water in the paddy once the rice can take it, so fewer new seedlings come up.
What to Do at Each Age of Your Rice
- 0 to 5 days: keep the soil saturated. Use a pre emergence herbicide only if the field had many weeds last season.
- 6 to 10 days: hand weed in transplanted rice. In direct seeded rice, this is the window for an early post emergence spray.
- 11 to 20 days: keep water in the field, weed by hand or with a rotary weeder, and let Azolla and the Altica beetle help. Spray only if those fail.
- 21 to 30 days: top up the water and keep weeding. Spray only if weeding fails.
- 31 to 40 days (transplanted rice): hand weed. A spray this late is only a rescue.
- After any post emergence spray, bring the water back within 1 to 3 days at 3 to 5 cm and hold it for 4 to 5 days. Keep young rice above it.
Active Ingredients That Work on Grasses
If water and weeding cannot hold Echinochloa glabrescens down, choose an active ingredient that works on grasses at the age of your rice. Each active ingredient in it is in a herbicide registered in the Philippines for rice. Shop by the ingredient on the label, never by the brand. If your field also has other kinds of weeds, the weed control helper in anee.io finds the ingredients that cover all of them.
| Rice age (days after planting) | Transplanted rice (lipat tanim) | Direct seeded rice (sabog tanim) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 days | Butachlor, Pretilachlor, Oxadiazon, Butachlor plus 2,4 D IBE, Pendimethalin, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Clomazone, Penoxsulam plus butachlor, Tefuryltrione plus triafamone, Tetflupyrolimet, Thiobencarb plus 2,4 D IBE | Butachlor, Pretilachlor, Oxadiazon, Pretilachlor plus butachlor, Butachlor plus 2,4 D IBE, Pendimethalin, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Butachlor with safener, Clomazone, Tetflupyrolimet |
| 6 to 10 days | Butachlor plus propanil, Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Pendimethalin, Cyhalofop butyl plus propanil, Propyrisulfuron, Clomazone plus propanil, Thiobencarb plus propanil, Flucetosulfuron, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl | Butachlor plus propanil, Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Cyhalofop butyl plus propanil, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Pendimethalin, Propyrisulfuron, Clomazone plus propanil, Thiobencarb plus propanil, Pretilachlor plus pyribenzoxim, Penoxsulam, Flucetosulfuron, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl |
| 11 to 20 days | Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Cyhalofop butyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Propyrisulfuron, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Flucetosulfuron, Florpyrauxifen benzyl, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl, Profoxydim | Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Pyribenzoxim, Cyhalofop butyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Propyrisulfuron, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Flucetosulfuron, Florpyrauxifen benzyl, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl, Profoxydim |
| 21 to 30 days | Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron | Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Metamifop, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Pyribenzoxim |
| 31 to 40 days | No herbicide listed at this age. Hand weed and keep the water up. | Not listed for direct seeded rice |
Spray Safely
Use only herbicides registered with the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, and follow the label on the pack: the rate, the timing, the water and the protective clothing. Switch herbicide groups between seasons so the weeds do not learn to survive them. Our guide to herbicides for rice explains the groups.
Keep Echinochloa glabrescens Out Next Season
- Plant clean, certified seed. Weed seeds mixed into the punla are the easiest way in.
- Keep the seedbed, the canals and the bunds free of weeds, so seed does not wash or blow into the paddy.
- Prepare the land well: flood, plow, let the weed seeds sprout, then kill them when you harrow. Level the field so water covers it evenly.
- Pull escapes before the seed heads open, and clean the thresher and harvester before they enter the field.
- Keep the field clean after harvest and through the fallow, so fewer seeds build up in the soil for next season.
These steps work for every grass weed in the paddy, not only this one. The weed management guide puts them in order for a whole season.
Not Sure It Is Echinochloa glabrescens?
Take a clear photo of the leaf, the stem and the flower or seed head, then ask Anee, the smart farm technician in anee.io, in Tagalog or English. Anee tells you which weed it most likely is, its group, and what to do at the age of your rice. You can also put the weeding days on your cropping calendar, so the team knows when to go in.
anee.io keeps your weeding, spraying and water on one calendar, and Anee answers when a plant looks wrong.
- Weeding days on the season calendar
- Photos and notes for every lot
- Anee, the smart farm technician, in Tagalog or English
Questions Farmers Ask About Echinochloa glabrescens
What do farmers call Echinochloa glabrescens locally?
How do I control this weed in my rice field?
Can this weed attract rice pests to my field?
Get Echinochloa glabrescens out of your field
With Libre + Anee, read the whole guide: how to tell it from your crop, and what to do and spray at every age of your crop.
The account is free, no credit card.
