Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) is a long-lived perennial vine and one of the most persistent broadleaf weeds in Australian turf. Its creeping stems stay flat along the ground until they contact another plant or a structure, and then they climb. In mown turf it stays prostrate and you can easily miss it until it flowers.

What makes it hard to shift is underground. The taproot goes deep, lateral roots carry buds that can generate whole new plants, and buds form within about four weeks of germination. Seed stays viable in soil for 20 years or more. The plant also tolerates glyphosate naturally, which is why a knockdown that flattens everything else leaves bindweed coming back.

After reading this you will be able to:

• Identify field bindweed, and separate it from the native bindweeds and the Ipomoea species Australians usually mean by “morning glory”
• Understand why pre-emergent programs do not touch it
• Choose a herbicide that is registered for your turf species, and know where your obligations sit
• Build a multi-season program that actually reduces the population

Why is Field Bindweed a Problem Weed?

Field bindweed is not only a cosmetic problem. At full canopy cover in agriculture it reduces crop yields by up to 50% through competition for water, light and nutrients. In turf the same mechanisms apply:

• Draws soil moisture below the wilting point of the turf around it, through a root system deeper than the turf
• Competes hard for light whenever the turf canopy thins, which in Australia usually means late summer
• Re-shoots from root and rhizome fragments if damaged, so cultivation spreads it
• Spreads by seed that survives more than 100 hours in a bird’s gut, and moves in soil, sand, turf, mulch, water and on machinery
• Releases allelochemicals from its roots that inhibit neighbouring plants, and tolerates theirs
• Hosts root-knot nematode and other nematode species
• Is suspected toxic to livestock, which matters where turf adjoins grazing land

Field Bindweed and Soil Condition

Field bindweed is often presented as an indicator of low calcium, low phosphorus, drought stress or excess potassium. The plant is genuinely favours dry, compact, low-fertility soils where the sward is thin, and it is rarely dominant under a dense, well-fed canopy. What it does not do is tell you a nutrient value. If you want to know your calcium and phosphorus status, run a soil test. The useful conclusion is the agronomic one: a site that grows bindweed well is usually a site with a turf density problem, and by fixing that it reduces re-establishment pressure after any chemical program.

How to Identify Field Bindweed

For a photo guide to the broader Australian turf weed spectrum, see the Weed ID Chart.

Growth habit. Prostrate creeping perennial, trailing and twining, rhizomatous. Climbs once it finds support. Stems are slender and round in cross-section, glabrous to sparsely hairy.

Flowers. Funnel-shaped, 15–30 mm long, white to pink, sometimes with pink stripes running up the outside of the funnel. Each flower lasts one day. They close at night and on heavily overcast days, which is nyctinasty. Main flowering is mid spring to early autumn, with flowers appearing year-round in mild coastal districts.

Leaves. Alternate on the stem, not opposite. Lamina roughly 1.5–6 cm long and 0.5–4 cm wide, ovate to oblong and often triangular, with a hastate or sagittate (arrow-shaped) base. The basal lobes point backwards and do not ascend. Margins are mostly entire or irregularly crenate.

Sepals. Small, to about 4 mm long, with a rounded or notched (retuse) tip. This is the character that matters most, and the reason is in the next section.

Bracteoles. Small, 2–4 mm long, and sitting well down the flower stalk away from the calyx.

Roots. Taproot to around 3 m, with lateral roots spreading several metres and carrying regenerative buds.

Photosynthetic pathway. C3. It is therefore not as heat-competitive as a C4 warm-season grass, which is why a dense couch or kikuyu cover in full summer growth gives real competitive suppression.

Telling Field Bindweed from Native Bindweeds and Morning Glories

This is where most identifications go wrong. If you get it wrong in Australia it means you spray a native.

Australia has around thirteen Convolvulus species in NSW alone, most of them native. Before Johnson’s 2001 revision they were all lumped under Convolvulus erubescens, which is why older references and many web pages still talk about a single “native bindweed”. You are most likely to come across Convolvulus angustissimus in south Australian turf and grassland. This matters because the shortcut everybody repeats does not work on it.

The shortcut that fails. “Natives have smaller flowers.” That holds for C. erubescens in the strict sense and for C. microsepalus, but C. angustissimus flowers run 9–25 mm against field bindweed’s 15–30 mm. The ranges overlap across most of their span. Flower size will not separate field bindweed from the native you are most likely to be looking at.

What does work: the sepals. On field bindweed the sepals are 4 mm or shorter with a blunt, rounded or notched tip. With the native segregates they are 4–7 mm and have a fine point. You need a hand lens and an open or just-spent flower. Everything else is a supporting character.

Supporting characters. Field bindweed leaves are glabrous or carry a few weak erect hairs; C. angustissimus has mostly spreading hairs on sepals and older stems, and C. microsepalus has silvery appressed hairs. Field bindweed leaf margins are entire to irregularly crenate with backward-pointing basal lobes; the natives tend to crenate or serrate margins and, where the base is hastate, ascending lobes. Flower colour is a prior rather than a diagnosis: field bindweed usually white to pale pink, C. angustissimus pink and rarely white, C. erubescens pink or mauve with a distinctly greenish throat.

Separate by genera.

• Greater or hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium, C. silvatica). This has large bracteoles, 1.5–3.5 cm, that sit right under the flower enclosing the calyx. In Convolvulus they are small and well away from it. Flower size is an easy cross-check: 40–90 mm in Calystegia against 15–30 mm in field bindweed. Note that C. sepium subsp. roseata is treated as native in VIC, so “hedge bindweed is exotic” is not a safe assumption. C. silvatica is a garden escape recorded in the Bowral district among others.
• Blue morning glory (Ipomoea indica) and mile-a-minute (I. cairica). These are what most Australians mean when they say morning glory, and they are not field bindweed. The stigma is capitate rather than two narrow lobes, the corolla is violet-blue to purple with a tube alone 3.5–7.5 cm long, and the leaves are large: broad-ovate and entire to three-lobed in I. indica, palmately divided into 5–7 lobes almost to the base in I. cairica. Both are serious coastal environmental weeds and neither is controlled the same way.
• Native Polymeria (pink bindweed, P. calycina; P. pusilla) — the stigma has four or more lobes, and in P. calycina the sepals are grossly unequal with the outer two broadly ovate-cordate and 6–12 mm long. Violet flower plus unequal sepals rules out Convolvulus.

The honest limitation. Every reliable character above sits on the flower or on a mid-stem leaf of an intact trailing shoot. Under regular mowing field bindweed rarely flowers and its leaves are reduced and atypical. You cannot make a field-bindweed-versus-native call from a photograph of a mown leaf. The best method for a club or council is to mark a plant and leave it uncut until it flowers. Photographs will reliably separate Convolvulus from Calystegia and Ipomoea; they will not separate field bindweed from C. angustissimus.

Reproduction of Field Bindweed

Vegetative. From roots, rhizomes and stem fragments, spreading 2–3 m in a growing season. Root buds form within about four weeks of germination, which is the window in which hand weeding still works.

Seed. One to four seeds per flower and roughly 500–550 seeds per plant. Seed becomes waterproof about a month after shedding. Fresh seed germinates at only 5–25%, but scarified seed germinates at close to 100%, so anything that abrades the seed coat — cultivation, verti-draining, traffic, passage through an animal — raises recruitment. Seed remains viable in field soil for 20 years or more; the much-quoted 50-year-plus figures come from dry storage experiments rather than buried seed, and should not be used to describe a turf seedbank.

Germination. From 6–7 cm depth, which is below the zone where most pre-emergent herbicides hold a barrier. Emergence runs spring into early summer once daytime temperatures pass about 14°C, with a smaller tail through to late autumn.

Habitat. Tolerates full sun to shade and sustained drought. Favours dry, gravelly, compacted profiles but grows fastest on fertile ground with moderate moisture. Rarely found in genuinely wet soils. Common on verges, disturbed ground and waste areas, which is usually where a turf infestation arrives from.

Where Field Bindweed Is Declared

Field bindweed is present in every state and territory except the Northern Territory, and it carries a legal status in two states. Your obligations depend on where the site is, and they are not the same obligations.

South Australia.

Declared under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019, Category 3. Across the whole state it must not be sold or traded in any way “including as a contaminant of anything”, and must not be transported on a public road, again including as a contaminant. That contaminant wording is the live risk for a turf manager: imported topsoil, sand, gravel, mulch, turf or a dirty machine moved on a public road can breach it. A duty to destroy the plant applies only on land used for extracting or removing soil, loam, sand or gravel, so there is no general statutory duty to control it on ordinary turf or parkland in South Australia.

Victoria.

A declared noxious weed under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994. The category varies by catchment region across restricted, regionally controlled and regionally prohibited, so you must check the current consolidated list for your region rather than assume. The obligations differ materially: regionally prohibited means taking all reasonable steps to eradicate it on your property, regionally controlled means taking all reasonable steps to prevent its growth and spread, and restricted means it is an offence to sell or trade it. This is the sharpest obligation in the country, and in a regionally controlled region it is an active duty on land you own or manage, not a passive one.

New South Wales.

Not a declared or prohibited weed, and it does not appear on the regional priority weed lists I checked. The general biosecurity duty under the Biosecurity Act 2015 still applies: anyone who knows, or ought reasonably to know, of a biosecurity risk must take measures to prevent, eliminate or minimise it so far as is reasonably practicable. In practice that means not spreading it in soil, sand, turf or on machinery, and controlling it where it is moving onto neighbouring land.

Queensland.

Neither prohibited nor restricted matter. The general biosecurity obligation under the Biosecurity Act 2014 applies, which is a duty to take reasonable and practical measures within your control.

Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory.

Not a declared weed. It is absent from the Tasmanian declared weeds index, from the ACT’s Biosecurity (Pests) Declaration 2025 plant schedule, and from the NT list, and FloraBase records it in Western Australia with no declared pest rating. For a WA client

How to Control Field Bindweed

Established field bindweed is not a one-spray problem, because the plant you can see is a small fraction of the plant that exists. Control means combining cultural work that closes the canopy with correctly timed systemic herbicide, repeated across seasons. Autumn is the pivotal timing, and the reason is physiological rather than conventional: in autumn the plant is moving carbohydrate down into the root system, and a systemic herbicide follows the same path.

Management Calendar for Field Bindweed

Two windows, doing two different jobs. The autumn application (March to May) targets established plants while carbohydrate is moving to the roots. This is the one that reduces the root system. In the spring (September to November) it targets the seedlings that emerge from the seedbank before those seedlings form root buds and become permanent. If you miss the spring pass it means it continues to spread no matter how well the autumn pass worked. Mid-winter applications do little because uptake and translocation are both slow, and top growth may already have died back in cold areas.

Cultural Control of Field Bindweed

This work is essential, and not an optional extra. Herbicide on a site with bare patches, a compact soil profile or poor fertility buys a season and then the population returns from the seedbank and the surviving roots.

• Close the canopy. Field bindweed does not compete well under a dense, actively growing C4 sward in summer. Apply the right nitrogen rate for the species and the season, and address any soil test deficiencies.
• Hold height of cut. Scalping opens the canopy and hands bindweed the light it needs. Correct mowing height is a passive suppression tool and costs nothing.
• Relieve compaction. Compact, droughty soils suit bindweed and don’t favour turf. Be aware that aggressive cultivation through an established infestation will also fragment roots and spread it, so sequence renovation after a chemical program rather than before it.
• Irrigate to keep the turf competitive, not to drown the weed. Bindweed is rarely found in genuinely wet soils, but you cannot irrigate it out of existence in turf, and trying will cost you the sward. The mechanism worth managing is the opposite one: sustained deficit irrigation thins the canopy, and bindweed’s root depth lets it keep drawing water long after the turf has stopped. Irrigate to sustain turf density.
• Hand weed. Effective only on plants less than about four weeks old, and before lateral root buds form. After that, pulling removes top growth and the buds regenerate.
• Mow as control. This does not work. The prostrate habit lets bindweed survive low mowing indefinitely.

Chemical Control of Field Bindweed

What the Australian labels actually say

Almost every guide written for Australia borrows its chemistry from US extension material.

No Australian label names bindweed, field bindweed or Convolvulus arvensis as a weed in turf. Every bindweed entry that I have been able to verify falls in a non-crop, industrial, pasture or orchard block. Kamba 500 lists field bindweed under non-crop only. ProForce Contra M Duo lists it under non-crop at 5.2 L/ha. Casper Turf does not list it at all. Warhead Trio’s turf weed list runs to seven species and bindweed is not among them. Accensi Bromacil 800WP does list “Bindweed (Convolvulus)” but under industrial weed control at 16.5–22 kg/ha.

The nearest thing to a turf claim is MCPA 750, whose turf row sits inside a “Pastures, Seed Crops & Turf” block directing the reader to a shared weed table. That table has a use rate of 1.35 L and to use it at bud stage over several seasons.

What that means. Use of a registered product in a situation the label covers, and against a weed the label does not name, is permitted off-label use in most of Australia. In NSW it is exempted by clause 57 of the Pesticides Regulation 2017, which covers a pesticide “used to control a weed or pest other than a weed or pest of a kind specified by the label”. VIC treats the same thing as low-risk off-label use, as do QLD, WA, SA and the NT.

Three conditions apply in every state. You must not exceed the label rate. Do not use the product in a situation the label does not cover. You must follow an explicit DO NOT statement.

So if you treat bindweed as a weed in turf with a herbicide, you carry the efficacy risk yourself because no manufacturer has made a claim.

Pre-emergent herbicides

Pre-emergents do not control field bindweed, for two independent reasons. An established infestation recruits mainly from its own root and rhizome network, which no pre-emergent reaches. And the seed germinates from 6–7 cm, below the zone where a surface-applied barrier is active. Quinclorac, which is used against bindweed in some overseas programs, is not registered for this use in Australia.

Post Emergent Control of Field Bindweed

Autumn applications of the phenoxy and benzoic acid chemistry give the best result, for the translocation reason set out above. Expect to repeat annually. A single application will suppress, not eliminate.

Never use Dicamba on buffalo grass. Dicamba damages buffalo. ProForce Contra M Duo reads “DO NOT use on Lippia or Strawberry Clover or Buffalo grass.” Casper reads “DO NOT apply to Buffalo Grass.” Treat this as a rule about the active, not about a particular brand.

2,4-D turf registration is restricted by state, and the restriction differs between products. On the Adama 2,4-D Amine 625 label the turf situation is lawns and playing fields in Qld, NSW and the ACT at 1.6–3.2 L/ha, with a separate WA handgun rate. Nufarm’s Amicide 625 registers lawns in QLD and NSW only. Turf use is not covered in VIC, SA or TAS on those labels. The Adama label also adds that if applying to golf courses in TAS, you must not apply to fairways adjacent to natural water bodies. Do not mow for one week before and at least one week after application.

The dicamba plus 2,4-D tank mix has a trap in it. The Kamba 500 turf row specifies 1.2 L plus 3.2 L of Amicide 625 in a minimum of 1000 L/ha water. That 3.2 L rate sits above the 2,4-D turf cap applying in VIC, TAS and SA, so this mix is only usable in QLD, NSW and the ACT.

MCPA 750 is the gentlest of the options. The established turf rate is 930 mL to 1.8 L/ha; newly laid turf is 330 mL/ha and must be at least two months old. Do not mow for two days before application.

Mixes

Casper is worth knowing about and is missing from most Australian bindweed guides. It is registered for established fine and amenity turf as dicamba 500 g/kg plus prosulfuron 50 g/kg, Groups 2 and 4, at 600 g to 1.2 kg/ha in 400–800 L water with a non-ionic surfactant at 0.25–0.5% v/v. Bindweed is not on its label, so it is an off-label target like everything else here, but the addition of an ALS inhibitor to dicamba is agronomically the most interesting selective option available for a hard perennial broadleaf in turf. Not on buffalo.

Warhead Trio is one product, not two — “Warhead” and “Warhead Trio” refer to the same registration, and the identical formulation is sold as Bow and Arrow. Diflufenican brings a second mode of action into a mix that is otherwise all Group 4, which is worth having. Two restraints commonly missed: it must not be used on bent grass or winter grass golf and bowling greens, and because of diflufenican’s residual activity, overseeding within three months of application may fail to establish. On buffalo the label asks you to test a small area first rather than prohibiting it outright. Transient discolouration on kikuyu, carpet grass and Queensland blue couch is expected and stated on the label.

Table of Post Emergent Herbicides for Field Bindweed

Non Selective Bindweed Control

These remove the turf as well as the weed. Use them only where total-kill is desired, or off turf entirely.

Glyphosate. Apply from full bloom to early seed stage, or to autumn regrowth. Cover the foliage fully without runoff, and expect repeat applications. Field bindweed is naturally tolerant of glyphosate rather than resistant to it, which is an important distinction: the published work describes natural tolerance associated with poor translocation into a root system holding large carbohydrate reserves, not a selected resistant biotype. There is no confirmed case of evolved glyphosate resistance in Convolvulus arvensis. The practical implication is the same either way — a single knockdown will not kill it — but the reason matters, because rotating modes of action is a response to resistance, whereas tolerance calls for better uptake, better timing and repeat treatment. Where water quality is poor, an appropriate conditioning adjuvant will help.

Glufosinate-ammonium. Gives around four to six weeks of control. Limited systemic movement means regrowth from the root system is the norm. Note that its registered amenity use is narrow: on sports grounds the labelled turf use is line-marking, meaning deliberate turf kill. Perennial bindweed is named on the label at 2–3 L/ha, but for orchard, vineyard and non-agricultural situations, not turf.

Long-residual products: not for turf

The three products below appear in almost every Australian bindweed discussion, and none of them is registered for turf or amenity lawn. Situation is the one off-label variation that is never permitted in any state, so using them on turf is not a judgement call. They belong on hardscape, fence lines, rights of way and industrial areas.

What to Expect from a Control Program

Set expectations before the first application, because the failure mode here is a client who expected eradication.

Year one. Substantial reduction in visible cover. The root system remains largely intact.

Year two. Reduced regrowth density, provided both the autumn and the spring applications were made.

Year three and beyond. Effective suppression on an annual maintenance application, with the canopy doing an increasing share of the work.

A seedbank viable for 20 years or more means new seedlings will keep appearing long after the established root network is under control. The spring pass on the seedling cohort is not a lesser version of the autumn pass; it is the half of the program that stops the population replacing itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is morning glory the same as field bindweed?

Not reliably. Morning glory is listed as one of many common names for field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), so the usage is defensible, but in Australia most people saying morning glory mean Ipomoea indica or Ipomoea cairica, which are different plants with violet-blue funnels 6–8 cm across and large lobed or divided leaves. Field bindweed flowers are 15–30 mm, white to pink, and its leaves are arrow-shaped and alternate on the stem. If the flower is bigger than your thumb and blue, it is not field bindweed.

How do I tell field bindweed from the native bindweed?

Use the sepals, not the flowers. Field bindweed has sepals 4 mm or shorter with a blunt or notched tip; the native segregates of the Convolvulus erubescens complex have sepals 4–7 mm drawn to a fine point. Flower size does not work, because the common native Convolvulus angustissimus flowers at 9–25 mm against field bindweed’s 15–30 mm. You cannot make this call from a photo of a mown leaf, so mark a plant, let it flower somewhere it will not be cut, and check the sepals with a hand lens.

Why won’t my bindweed die after spraying?

Usually one of three reasons. You treated in summer rather than autumn, so the herbicide did not follow carbohydrate movement down into the root system. You used a single Group 4 product where a combination would have done more. Or you used glyphosate and expected a kill, when field bindweed is naturally tolerant of it. Autumn timing, a second mode of action, and a spring follow-up on seedlings will each do more than increasing the rate.

Can I use a pre-emergent to stop field bindweed?

No. An established infestation recruits mainly from its own root and rhizome network, which no pre-emergent reaches, and the seed germinates from 6–7 cm, below the zone where a surface barrier is active.

Is field bindweed a declared weed in Australia?

In two states. It is declared in South Australia under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 as a Category 3 plant, where the statewide obligations are prohibitions on sale and on transport by public road, including as a contaminant of soil, sand or machinery. It is a declared noxious weed in Victoria under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994, with the category and therefore the obligation varying by catchment region. In New South Wales and Queensland only the general biosecurity duty applies. It is not declared in Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT or the Northern Territory.

Is field bindweed toxic?

Field bindweed is suspected toxic to livestock, particularly horses. There is no confirmed human health hazard at normal exposure, but heavily infested areas should not be grazed. The plant also hosts root-knot nematode.

Sources

1. Weeds Australia profile, Field Bindweed — weeds.org.au/profiles/field-bindweed-common/
2. PlantNET, NSW Flora Online, Convolvulus key and species descriptions; Convolvulaceae genus key — plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au
3. VicFlora, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Convolvulus arvensis and C. angustissimus — vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au
4. PIRSA declared plant listing, field bindweed — pir.sa.gov.au
5. Agriculture Victoria, consolidated lists of declared noxious weeds and invasive plant classifications — agriculture.vic.gov.au
6. NSW general biosecurity duty, Biosecurity Act 2015 — dpird.nsw.gov.au
7. Pesticides Regulation 2017 (NSW), clause 57, off-label exemption — legislation.nsw.gov.au
8. Agriculture Victoria, off-label chemical use — agriculture.vic.gov.au
9. APVMA 2,4-D chemical review, final implementation — apvma.gov.au
10. Adama 2,4-D Amine 625 label, APVMA 55046/135336; Nufarm Amicide 625, 52904/51791; Nufarm Kamba 500, 51080/51800; Adama MCPA 750, 53893/63191; Syngenta Casper Turf Herbicide, 63890/59411; ProForce Contra M Duo, 88327/122176; ProForce Warhead Trio, 70225/121709; ProForce Renegade 800 WG, 94196/142821; ProForce Numchuk Quad, 81009/121843; ProForce Cortex Duo, 91838/138200
11. Herbicide mode of action chart
12. Molecular basis of natural tolerance to glyphosate in Convolvulus arvensis, Scientific Reports 9, 8100 (2019) — nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44583-8

Label details were verified against manufacturer-published labels and APVMA records in September 2026. Labels change. Read the label supplied with the product you are using, including its state-by-state columns, before mixing anything.

Written by Jerry Spencer, Principal Agronomist, Gilba Solutions Pty Ltd. BSc Hons Soil Science, former STRI agronomist, author of Nutrition of Sports Turf in Australia (CSIRO/Landlinks Press) and The Definitive Guide to Australian Turfgrass Pesticide Management. 35+ years advising golf courses, stadiums and councils across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Europe.

Related pages: Weed ID Chart | Broadleaf Weed Control in Autumn | What Weeds Tell Us About Your Soil | Herbicide Resistance