Jungle Rice Weed: How to Tell It From Palay and Control It
Jungle rice weed (Echinochloa colona) is a grass weed that looks a lot like young palay. It grows in irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields across the Philippines. Its stems often turn purple or red near the base. This page shows how to spot it early, how much harm it does and how to control it.
What Is Jungle Rice Weed?
This damo is a close cousin of barnyard grass, and it belongs to the grass family. Farmers know it as dukayang, lau lau or pulang pwet. That last name fits, since most stems turn purple or red at the base. You will find it in both irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields. It often comes up at the same time as the rice itself.
Jungle rice weed is an annual. It finishes its whole life in one season, then dies. It spreads only by seed, but one plant can drop thousands. Those seeds wait in the soil and sprout with the next crop. So the weeds you leave this season decide how many you will fight next season.
| Name | Jungle rice weed |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Echinochloa colona |
| Family | Poaceae (Graminae) |
| Weed group | Grasses (see the three groups) |
| Local names | Dukayang, lau lau, pulang pwet |
| Life cycle | Annual |
| Spreads by | Seeds |
| Where it grows | Irrigated and rainfed lowland rice fields |
How to Identify Jungle Rice Weed
Like other grasses, it has round, hollow stems with clear joints, or nodes. Most stems lie flat on the soil, then turn upward at the tips. Most are purple or reddish too. Now fold back a leaf where it meets the stem. Rice has a small ligule and tiny auricles there, but this weed has neither. Its spikelets sit tight in four rows along one side of each branch, sometimes with a tiny awn under 1 mm.
- Stems lie flat on the soil at first, then the tips turn upward.
- Most stems show a purple or red color, mostly near the base.
- Look alike tip: rice has a ligule and small auricles at the leaf collar, but this weed has none.
- Small egg shaped spikelets crowd in four neat rows along one side of each branch.
- The spikelets sit almost without stalks and may carry a tiny awn under 1 mm.
Why It Hurts Your Palay
Jungle rice weed is a C4 weed, so it grows fast in strong sun and heat. One plant can produce 3,000 to 6,000 seeds. Hand weeding is hard, because its young seedlings look almost the same as rice. So it is easy to pull the wrong plant or miss the weed.
The yield losses are heavy. When it competes fully at 4 weeds for every 1 rice plant, yield drops by 86 percent. At 8 weeds for every 1 rice plant, the loss reaches 93 percent. Besides that, it hosts other pests between crops. These include Sarocladium oryzae, the fungus behind sheath rot, as well as the rice bug and the rice black bug.
How to Control Jungle Rice Weed
- Check every hill when you weed. Fold back the leaf collar, and if you find no ligule, pull the plant out.
- Pull it while it is young, before it tillers and blends into the rice rows. Older clumps are harder to tell apart.
- Transplant in straight rows when you can. Then any plant growing between the rows, where rice should not be, stands out right away.
- Keep the field flooded after planting once the rice can take it. A steady layer of water holds back many grass seeds from sprouting.
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 jungle rice weed 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 Jungle Rice Weed 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 Jungle Rice Weed?
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 Jungle Rice Weed
What do farmers call jungle rice in the Philippines?
How do I control jungle rice weed in my palay?
Why is it so hard to pull out by hand?
Get Jungle Rice out of your field
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