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Graminae
Common names
Wild cane, pit-pit (New Guinea).
Description
Rhizomatous erect grass 2-3.5 m, with stiff, rather slender
culms, 0.6-1.25 cm in diameter. Leaves linear, lanceolate, channelled,
about 1.25 cm wide. Panicle plumelike, rather narrow; spikelets 3-4 mm
long, lodicules ciliate (Henty, 1969).
Distribution
Africa (Ghana), Asia to Melanesia.
Altitude range
Sea-level to 1 700 m in New Guinea.
Rainfall requirements
It prefers a high rainfall, usually in excess of 1 500 mm.
Drought tolerance
It has a good degree of drought tolerance.
Soil requirements
Adapted to a wide range of soils, generally of rather sandy
types.
Sowing methods
Established by stem cuttings or division of rhizomes (see S.
sinense).
Tolerance to herbicides
Where S. spontaneum is a weed and needs control, it is best
treated in hot weather by ploughing, followed by TCA sodium salt at 30
kg AI/ha. Any regenerating plants can be controlled by spraying with a
mixture of dalapon and aminotriazole at 10 kg AI/ha (Singh, Pandey &
Shankarnarayan, 1970).
Ability to compete with
weeds
It develops an enormous root system and possesses the lightest
of seeds. It flowers toward the end of the rains in India when the floods
recede and expose bare mud flats, sand banks and islands, and eroded land.
These areas are at once occupied by S. spontaneum, Phragmites and other
grasses. If these stands are burnt in the earlier part of the year they
will be ousted by Imperata cylindrica (Bor, 1960).
Palatability
It provides poor fodder, but is used to feed buffaloes in India.
Natural habitat
Common on river banks, alluvial plains, damp depressions and
swamps as a fire disclimax grassland (Paijmans, 1976).
Tolerance to flooding
It will tolerate some flooding.
Genetics and reproduction
2n=40, 48, 54, 55, 56, 64, 80, 112, 120, 126, 128 (Fedorov,
1974).
Economics
The species flowers and fruits at the end of the rains in India
and is therefore capable of colonizing areas such as soil and sand left
bare by retreating floods. The root system is extremely extensive and the
grass acts as an effective soil binder (Bor, 1960).
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