Globe Fringerush: How to Spot and Control Bungot Bungot in Rice
Globe fringerush, or Fimbristylis miliacea, is a sedge weed of irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields in the Philippines. Farmers know it as bungot bungot, gumi, siraw siraw and other names. A single plant can make a huge number of seeds. This page shows how to spot it and how to control it before it sets seed.
What Is Globe Fringerush?
This damo is a sedge from the Cyperaceae family. It has many local names, such as bungot bungot, buntot pusa, gumi, siraw siraw, sirisibayas and sumpana balik. You will find globe fringerush in both irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields.
Most plants live for one season only, though some keep growing as perennials. It spreads by seed, and it makes a lot of it. Each flower head carries many small, round spikelets that ripen and drop seed into the soil. Those seeds then sprout with the next crop. So a few plants you miss today can turn into a thick stand next season. Early weeding is the best way to break that cycle. Weed before flowering, every season, and the stand will thin out.
| Name | Globe fringerush |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Fimbristylis miliacea |
| Family | Cyperaceae |
| Weed group | Sedges (see the three groups) |
| Local names | Bungot bungot, buntot pusa, gumi, siraw siraw, sirisibayas, sumpana balik |
| Life cycle | Annual, sometimes perennial |
| Spreads by | Seeds |
| Where it grows | Irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields |
How to Identify Globe Fringerush
Like all sedges, it has a solid stem with no nodes. Its stems stand erect and look flat, and each one carries 2 to 4 unequal bracts that stay shorter than the flower head. The leaves are narrow, flat and soft, and they overlap in two rows at the base, like a fan. At the top you will see many small spikelets, round to egg shaped and brown to brownish orange.
- Erect, flattened stems with no joints along their length.
- Two to four unequal bracts under the flower head, each shorter than the head.
- Soft, flat, narrow leaves overlapping in two rows, spread like a fan.
- Many small spikelets, round to egg shaped, colored brown to brownish orange.
- Look alike tip: forked fimbry looks almost the same but has fewer, bigger, egg shaped spikelets.
Why It Hurts Your Palay
Globe fringerush is a C4 weed that seeds heavily: one plant can shed over 40,000 seeds. So even a few plants left to flower can load your soil with seed for the next crop.
Like other sedges, it also competes with palay for light, water and fertilizer. It grows between the rice hills and draws on the same nutrients your crop needs. Its seeds can mix with harvested palay and lower the quality of seed you keep. Thick stands can shelter insect pests near the rice hills too.
How to Control Globe Fringerush
- Pull plants before the brown spikelets ripen, because one plant can produce more than 40,000 seeds.
- Level the field and keep water over the soil, so its tiny seeds have fewer exposed spots to sprout.
- Remove the whole plant with its base, since some plants live on as perennials.
- Clean bunds and field edges, because plants there can shed seed that washes into the paddy.
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 Sedges
If water and weeding cannot hold globe fringerush down, choose an active ingredient that works on sedges 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, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, Imazosulfuron, Penoxsulam plus butachlor, Tefuryltrione plus triafamone, Thiobencarb plus 2,4 D IBE | Butachlor, Pretilachlor, Oxadiazon, Pretilachlor plus butachlor, Butachlor plus 2,4 D IBE, 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, 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, Pyrazosulfuron ethyl plus pretilachlor, 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 Globe Fringerush 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 their flower clusters turn brown, since one clump drops a great deal of tiny seed.
- 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 sedge weed in the paddy, not only this one. The weed management guide puts them in order for a whole season.
Not Sure It Is Globe Fringerush?
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 Globe Fringerush
What do farmers call globe fringerush in Tagalog and other local languages?
How do I control it in my rice field?
Why are there so many of these weeds in my field?
Get Globe Fringerush out of your field
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