Sustainable Oil Palm Farming / Identifying noxious weeds

Download: Module 3: Plantation Maintenance


Table 2: Common noxious weeds

Scientific name	Common name	Properties	Found in	Control
Woody weeds and shrubs:
Melastoma malabathricum	Straights rhododendron	Fast-growing flowering shrub, unpalatable for animals, dominant on P-deficient soils	All plantations	Uprooting / triclopyr
Clidemia hirta	Soapbush	Fast-growing flowering shrub, dominant on poor soils	All plantations	Uprooting / triclopyr
Mimosa pudica	Mimosa	Fast-growing flowering shrub, unpalatable, thorny	All plantations	Uprooting / triclopyr
Lantana camara	Sage	Fast-growing flowering shrub, toxic to livestock	All plantations	Uprooting / triclopyr
Chromolaena odorata	Siam weed	Fast-growing flowering shrub, toxic to livestock, allelopathic	All plantations	Uprooting / triclopyr
Ferns:
Dicranopteris linearis		Climbing fern, shade-intolerant, unpalatable	Immature and young plantations
Stenochlaena palustris	Midin / kalakai	Climbing fern, thorny, unpalatable		Glyphosate application
Nephrolepis spp.		Slow-growing shade-tolerant fern	Soft weed	Slashing at knee height
Herbs and creeping vines:
Mikania spp.	Bitter vine	Fast-growing shade-intolerant perennial creeping herb; allelopathic; dominant on poorly drained and nutrient deficient soils; very palatable	Noxious in stands < 5 years after planting. Beneficial as livestock feed.	Grazing; mowing; uprooting; glyphosate application
Asystasia gangetica	Chinese violet	Shade-tolerant perennial herbaceous mat-forming creeper; stems up to 1 m tall; growing very vigorously with high nutrient demand; edible; very palatable and rich in crude protein		Noxious if too dominant. Beneficial as livestock feed.
Grasses:
Imperata cylindrica	Speargrass, alang-alang	Medium shade-tolerant grass with sharp edges to blades; dominant on poor and acid soils; young shoots palatable	Noxious during establishment and immature phase; unwanted in mature stands	Spraying or wiping with glyphosate
Ischaemum muticum; Paspalum conjugatum		Shade-tolerant perennial creeping grasses with shoots of maximum 60 cm height; competitive with oil palm; palatable; used as forage species	Soft grasses	Grazing, slashing at knee height

Acknowledgements

The material from Identifying noxious weeds is sourced from Smallholder Oil Palm Handbook and put together by Lotte Suzanne Woittiez (Wageningen Universit) and Haryono Sadikin, Sri Turhina, Hidayat Dani, Tri Purba Dukan, and Hans Smit (SNV) in August 2016. See Module 3: Plantation Maintenance for more information.