Fringed Spiderflower: How to Spot and Control It in Rainfed Rice
Fringed spiderflower is a small broadleaf weed with pink to lilac flowers that grows in rainfed lowland rice fields in the Philippines. It has leaves made of three leaflets and long, thin seed pods. This page shows how to spot it among your palay, what harm it does, and how to control it before it seeds.
What Is Fringed Spiderflower?
This weed belongs to the spider flower family, a group of plants with long stalked flowers and thin pods. Farmers know it as apoy apoyan, balabalanoyan, tantandok or sili silihan. Fringed spiderflower grows in rainfed lowland rice fields, where the soil dries out between rains. In those open, drying patches, it can sprout fast and take hold before the rice closes in.
As an annual, it grows, flowers and sets seed in one season. It spreads only by seed. When its long green pods ripen, they split open into two halves and drop seeds onto the soil. Since one plant makes many pods, a few plants left in a field can seed a wide patch for the next planting.
| Name | Fringed spiderflower |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Cleome rutidosperma |
| Family | Cleomaceae |
| Weed group | Broadleaves (see the three groups) |
| Local names | Apoy apoyan, balabalanoyan, tantandok, sili silihan |
| Life cycle | Annual |
| Spreads by | Seeds |
| Where it grows | Rainfed lowland rice fields |
How to Identify Fringed Spiderflower
Check the stem first. It ranges from green to purple, has angles you can feel, and carries thin, firm hairs. Each leaf sits on a long stalk and holds three leaflets, oval to long and pointed, with fine hairs along the edges like a fringe. The middle leaflet grows bigger than the other two. As a broadleaf weed, it has netted leaf veins. Single lilac to pink flowers grow on slender stalks near the top, and long, thin green pods follow.
- Angular stems, green to purple, covered with thin, firm hairs.
- Leaves on long stalks, each with three leaflets fringed with fine hairs.
- A middle leaflet clearly bigger than the two side leaflets.
- Single lilac to pink flowers on slender stalks near the upper leaves.
- Long, thin green pods that split into two halves when ripe.
- Look alike tip: Asian spiderflower looks similar but has yellow flowers instead of pink or lilac.
Why It Hurts Your Palay
Fringed spiderflower competes with your palay for light, water and fertilizer. It thrives on open soil, so it can get ahead of young rice in rainfed fields that lack standing water. When it fills the gaps between hills, the rice has less room, food and sunlight to grow.
Its pods split and scatter seed before harvest, so each season the soil holds more. Thick patches also give insects and other pests a hiding place inside the field. Weed parts and seeds can mix with harvested grain as well. Since it lives only one season, the key is to stop each plant before its pods ripen.
How to Control Fringed Spiderflower
- Hand weed while plants are small. Pull the whole plant, roots included, before the first long pods appear.
- Do not leave pulled plants with ripe pods on the levee, since the pods can still split and drop seed.
- Keep water on the field after planting where you can. Upland weeds like this one sprout less under a steady flood.
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 Broadleaves
If water and weeding cannot hold fringed spiderflower down, choose an active ingredient that works on broadleaves 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 | Pretilachlor, Oxadiazon, Butachlor plus 2,4 D IBE, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Imazosulfuron, Penoxsulam plus butachlor, Tefuryltrione plus triafamone, Thiobencarb plus 2,4 D IBE | Pretilachlor, Oxadiazon, Pretilachlor plus butachlor, Butachlor plus 2,4 D IBE, Pendimethalin, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Butachlor with safener |
| 6 to 10 days | Butachlor plus propanil, Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Pendimethalin, Cyhalofop butyl plus propanil, Imazosulfuron, Propyrisulfuron, Clomazone plus propanil, Thiobencarb plus propanil, Flucetosulfuron, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl | Butachlor plus propanil, Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, 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, Bentazone, Cyhalofop butyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Propyrisulfuron, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Flucetosulfuron, Carfentrazone ethyl, Florpyrauxifen benzyl, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl | Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Bispyribac sodium, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, Penoxsulam plus cyhalofop butyl, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Bentazone, Pyribenzoxim, Cyhalofop butyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Propyrisulfuron, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Flucetosulfuron, Carfentrazone ethyl, Florpyrauxifen benzyl, Cyhalofop butyl plus florpyrauxifen benzyl |
| 21 to 30 days | 2,4 D amine, 2,4 D IBE, MCPA, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Bentazone, Metsulfuron methyl plus chlorimuron ethyl, Fenoxaprop P ethyl plus ethoxysulfuron, Carfentrazone ethyl | 2,4 D amine, 2,4 D IBE, Cyhalofop butyl plus bispyribac sodium, Pyribenzoxim plus cyhalofop butyl, MCPA, Metamifop plus bispyribac sodium, Bentazone, Metsulfuron methyl plus chlorimuron ethyl, Pyribenzoxim, Carfentrazone ethyl |
| 31 to 40 days | Metsulfuron methyl plus chlorimuron ethyl | 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 Fringed Spiderflower 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 they flower and set seed, and carry them out of the paddy instead of leaving them on the bund.
- 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 broadleaf weed in the paddy, not only this one. The weed management guide puts them in order for a whole season.
Not Sure It Is Fringed Spiderflower?
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 Fringed Spiderflower
What is fringed spiderflower called in the Philippines?
How do I control this weed in my rice field?
How does it spread so quickly?
Get Fringed Spiderflower out of your field
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