Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.

Code

CYNDA

Growth form

grass

Biological cycle

vivacious

Habitat

terrestrial

Cynodon dactylon is a clithochorous species (spread at very short distances).

Cynodon dactylon is a C4 species

Algeria: Cynodon dactylon is a very common species in all types of annual and perennial crops in the country.
Thermophilous grass affectionate with neutral, fairly rich, dry, lit and very hot sandy to silty-sandy soils of orchards and vineyards.

C4 plant with high growth rates under non-limiting radiation conditions and low growth under shadow conditions (De Abelleyra et al., 2007; Jones, 1985). It may grow in wide range of climates, from rainy tropics to arid land in irrigated areas (Holm et al. 1977). Common in upland rice, moist but not flooded soils, particularly in areas regularly disturbed. This species is adapted to a wide range of soils with a preference for the sandy, muddy and well drained soils.

Comoros: Cynodon dactylon is a common species in humid, shaded, places of low-altitude up to 500 m. It is common in all parts of Grande Comoros.
Madagascar: ruderal species (of roadsides, near houses ...) very cosmopolitan and widespread weed of crops throughout the island even in the sub arid south. It mainly invades fields located near homes, in fairly moist depressions or temporarily flooded (trays), or on the terraces or colluvium around lowlands, and in the alluvial plains.
Mauritius: Weed with a very wide distribution, it can develop in all environmental conditions.
Reunion: This weed is common across the island, at any altitude. C. dactylon can adapt to very different environments, but it is mostly a grass of dry and sunny environments. It grows on many soils with a preference for sandy soils to sandy loam.
Seychelles: This species occurs at all altitudes, in all agro-climatic conditions and on all types of soil.
West Indies: Cynodon dactylon is an exotic species. It colonises many ecological situations and grows abundantly on wet and temporarily flooded soils.
 

Toxicity

Cynodon dactylon is a plant with allergenic pollen.

Local harmfulness

Algeria: Cynodon dactylon is a major "weed". It is one of the most harmful species of field crops because it can colonize practically all ecological environments (very frequent species), moreover, its great adaptation to the agricultural environment gives it a very important potential of invasion of the plots (very abundant species). Its abundance is higher in mechanized crops than in manual crops, and in gravity irrigation mode than in localized irrigation mode. Suckers and rhizomes combine their effects to ensure the multiplication of the species by maintaining enough reserve material to feed a reinfestation. Frequent suckering, carried out indiscriminately, only makes the situation worse.

Madagascar: Cynodon dactylon is the host of striga 

Medicinal: In Algeria, the rhizome and runners of Cynodon dactylon are udes as diuretic, sudorific, depurative, refreshing and emollient. Quackgrass tea, to which liquorice is added, was used in febrile states and acute illnesses to quench the thirst of the sick, refresh them and activate urinary functions. Boil 30 g of roots in a sufficient quantity of water; discard this water whose flavor would be pungent and bitter, crush the roots then boil them again in 125 g of water, add at the end of the boiling 8 g of liquorice, remove from the fire, let cool and pass.

Medicinal: Cynodon dactylon is known in Malawi as a remedy for indigestion. The whole plant is used to heal wounds.
Fodder: It is used as pasture grass. In Madagascar, C. dactylon plays a very important role in livestock feed. The strong root system of C. dactylon makes the soil below Cynodon (well developed) generally have a good structure. These soils can be directly farmed without tillage, after herbicide control.
Other: Also plays an important role in conservation, because it prevents soil erosion.
 

Global control
 
Mechanical control: Young plants can be destroyed by tillage, but storage organs are difficult to remove. The plants with creeping stolons at the surface of the soil and can be destroyed by a frequent superficial soil tillage, with weed removal to prevent re-rooting. Those who have rhizomes are more difficult to control. Several passages in the dry season can be effective if the rhizomes are brought to the surface, where they dry out. This requires special equipment. In perennial crop like coffee, the numerous passages of tools can damage the roots of culture.

Chemical control: The use of glyphosate in non-cultivated area is effective. Dalapon is effective at a dose of 5 to 10 kg per ha, applied to young plants growing, preferably at the beginning of the rainy season.

For vivacious grass weed control tips of irrigated rice and lowland in Africa, visit: http://portal.wikwio.org/document/show/33
 
Local control
 
Madagascar: In irrigated rice fields, prolonged submersion gradually eliminates it. Mechanical control of C. dactylon is very difficult. It requires a minimum labour till the end of a rainy season (to expose the rhizomes sun during the dry season) and a second plowing early in the rainy season. Couch grass is not sensitive to most pre-emergence or post-emergence herbicides. However, it is very well controlled by glyphosate, which allows to use it as ground cover for direct seeding: from 1800 to 2160 g / ha for total destruction (forest floor), 720-1080 g / ha for temporary control (45 days for a live coverage).
Reunion: see the website of CaroCanne (The online magazine of sugar cane workers in Réunion); cahier technique n°34
Mauritius: see recommendation sheet: Sheet MSIRI Recommendation No. 144 - Chemical Control of Weeds Tough (click here)
West Indies: When stands of Cynodon dactylon become too dense, chemical management is ineffective.

Local control

Algeria: To control Cynodon dactylon, The first measure to be recommended for orchards irrigated with planks (citrus groves in particular), is to change this mode of gravity irrigation by a drip system, which will ipso facto make the presence spots disappear. Above all, it is necessary to avoid disking and milling infested plots and to favour, as soon as the soil is sufficiently dry, several superficial operations with a cultivator, a tine harrow, a vibrating tiller or a perennial weeder, especially in late spring and summer, bringing rhizomes and roots to the surface so that they dry out during the hot and dry months of the year. After this operation, rhizomes and roots should be collected in a pile and burned. In greenhouses, the solarisation technique, although not to be neglected, gives rather poor results.
Active ingredients such as fluazifop-butyl, sulfosulfuron, glyphosate, praquat, etc. control the adults.

Herbarium pictures ReCOLNAT: https://explore.recolnat.org/search/botanique/simplequery=Cynodon%2520dactylon