Ecology and management of an exotic weed Phalaris minor - Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects - page 157

Ecology and management of an exotic weed Phalaris
minor
Shalini Kaushik 1 , Robert E. Blackshaw 2 and Inderjit 1
1 Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), School of
Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India
2 Weed Management Research, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, P.O. Box 3000, 5403 1st Avenue
South, Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 4B1, Canada
Introduction
Phalaris minor Retz. (littleseed canarygrass), belonging to the family Poaceae,
is an annual non-native cropland weed of India (Fig. 1a). It is found predomi-
nantly in fields cultivated for wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) in the states of
Haryana and Punjab in northwestern India (Fig. 2). P. minor is indigenous to
Figure 1. (a) A field of cultivated wheat infested with P. minor; (b) a few P. minor plants growing on
a roadside in the state of Punjab; (c) labour carrying P. minor after manual weeding; and (d) a field
showing that P. minor grows taller than wheat