What does it look like?
Yellow bristle grass is an annual, upright growing grass 25 to 45 centimetres tall. In open pasture, its first leaves often grow parallel to the ground. Leaves are hairless, twisted and slightly rough at the edges and are coloured yellow-green to green. The leaf sheath is flattened and hairless and often turns reddish purple. It has a cylindrical spike (2.5-10cm long) with many densely packed spikelets. Each spikelet is surrounded by five to 10 bristles, (5-8 millimetres) long which are green initially but later turn golden brown.
Why is it a problem?
This plant hardens off in autumn resulting in lower pasture quality - a problem particularly for milk and stock finishing producers.
Control methods
To effectively stop yellow bristle grass from setting seed, glyphosate must be applied before the bristles turn yellow or prior to being pollinated.
Related links
Management Programme
Sustained Control Programme
Sustained Control exists to hold well-established pests at an acceptable maximum. However, the costs of management and control grow in-step with the size of the invasive population. Because cost:benefit returns can fall to 1:5 or less, most of this work is focused on specific sites of high ecological value. While the spread of these pests between neighbouring properties remains the predominant risk, in some cases control within properties is still sought and warranted. A sustained control programme will hold populations to maximum acceptable limits over the period of the RPMP.
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