Weed ID Chart. 10

The Turf Weed ID Chart

This easy-to-use Australian weed Identification chart enables you to identify weeds by photo. The weed ID chart helps you to get the best results from a weed killer and saves you time and money in managing lawn weeds.

Our weed ID chart links to pages for each weed, what factors favour that lawn weed and how to control it.

The three main things you should consider about weed identification in lawns.

1. If you identify the weeds from a photo in this weed ID chart, you do not always need to spray. Correct Australian weed identification saves you a lot of time and money, as many lawn weeds often indicate other problems. If you deal with these problems, it deters weeds and will reduce the need to use turf chemicals.
2. Weeds are grass weeds (also called monocots) or broadleaf weeds (known as dicots). If you can identify the weeds when they are seedlings you get a good start in their control. When seedlings grass weeds have one seedling leaf and broadleaf weeds have two leaves. Broadleaf herbicides do not control grass weeds.
3. The main thing is if your lawn or turf is thick and healthy, weeds find it very hard to get a foothold.

What is a weed?

A weed is any plant that grows where you do not want it. Weeds can be natives or introduced species.

How to Identify weeds with the Weed ID Chart.

Correct Australian weed identification is the first step to managing them. Even though two weeds may look the same, they can have a different response to a weed killer.

How a weed emerges gives a good idea whether it comes from a seed, rhizome or other below ground structure, and the best way to check this is to dig up the young weed.

If it’s easy to dig up, and has a few fine roots it is likely to be a true seedling. It’s most likely a perennial weed if it’s hard to dig up or has a rhizome.

Once you have the weed in your hand you can use the weed identification chart to identify the weed by photo.

You can group weeds based on their life cycles for Australian weed identification.

Summer Annuals.

Summer annuals grow in the Spring or early Summer, and grow through the Summer months. Towards the end of the Summer they then produce seed, and tend to die off as soon as frost occurs. These weeds compete with turf grass for nutrients, and moisture, and can shade out turf. They spread by seed, and broken fragments of shoots, and these can re-root and grow into new plants.

Small seeded Summer Annuals.

These weeds grow near the soil surface, and in a single season can produce a large number of seeds. Soil disturbance causes the seeds to germinate. Examples of these include: Pigweed, Knotweed, Mallow, Caltrop, Spurge, Black Medic, Capeweed, and Lambsquarters.

Summer Annual Broadleaf Weeds with large seeds.

These weeds emerge from deeper in the soil profile (6-50 mm), and grow quickly. They are aggressive competitors, seed within a single season, and. although they produce less seeds, these survive for decades. Examples of these include Morning Glory.

Summer Annual Grass Weeds.

Summer annual grass weeds have huge numbers of small to medium sized seeds. They germinate in the top 50 mm of the soil, and some germinate in response to light. Examples include Summer grass, and Crowsfoot.

Winter Annuals.

Winter annuals emerge in late Summer or Autumn, and spend Winter as low, compact plants or rosettes. In late Winter or early Spring they start to grow again, and form flowering shoots or stalks. They reproduce by seed in the late Spring or Summer of their second season, and in NSW, they may grow through the winter. Examples of these include Wild Mustards, Common Chickweed, and Henbit.

Biennial Weeds.

Biennial weeds germinate, grow vegetatively for one season, and over Winter they then go dormant. In the Spring or early Summer of their second year, they bolt, flower, and form seed. Their lifecycle is like the Winter annuals, except in their first season they start to grow earlier. They live longer than a year, and have larger main roots than most Winter annuals. Examples include Windmill Grass.

Perennials.

Perennials have deep, strong taproots (broadleafs) or strong fibrous root systems (grasses). This means that if you mow and remove the top of the plant, it regrows. These weeds spread by seed every year, grow slowly at first, and then become strong competitors once they establish.

Their life span is around several years, and good examples are Broadleaf Dock and Dandelions.

Spreading Perennials.

These reproduce by stolons (at the surface), rhizomes (below the surface), bulbs, tubers, and by seed.

Fragments of stolons or rhizomes as small as 25 mm, can regrow into new plants, and many of the most serious turf weeds are in this class. Examples include Couch Grass, Nutsedges, and Bindweed.

How to use the Weed ID Chart.

You can identify weeds by photo in the weed ID Chart. Questions to ask when you start to ID a weed include:

• What is the leaf shape, what do the leaf margins look like, and what is the pattern of the leaf veins.

• Does it have prickles, spines or thorns?

• Are hairs present and if so, where are they?

• Does the leaf have a simple or a compound structure?

• How are leaves arranged on a stem?

• What is the colour or size of the leaves and flowers?

• How are the flowers or clusters of flowers arranged?

• Is there any milk or sap when you cut the stem or leaves?

• Does it smell if you cut or crush it?

• Is it annual, biennial or perennial?

• Does the weed have a large main root or rhizomes?

• Is there a leaf sheath, and what does a cross section of the stem look like?

• Does it grow along the ground, or is it upright?

• What is the size, shape, structure, and colour of any seeds.

Other traits that can help identify the weed by photo include:

• How much branching is there, and how are these branches arranged on the main stem?

• What is the size of the leaf?

Online weed resources.

The sites below will help if you still cannot identify the weed from our Weed ID Chart.

Web Sites.

Hornsby Council in Sydney is a great resource for weed ID.

Ground Covers

Some Weed removal Techniques.

Weed Glossary for Identification

Australian Government Weeds Identification Tool. You can look up weeds by name, place, growth habit and flower colour.

PlantNET.

Weed Seedlings.

Brisbane Weeds.

Iphone apps.

Leafly

NSW Weed Wise

Picture This

Plant Net

Weed Scan

First of all apologies in advance for the images below. I don’t claim to have any ability as an artist and these pictures confirm this. Identifying weeds can be difficult but all weeds do have traits that help with this.

Properties of weeds in the Weed ID Chart.

The table below outlines some properties of turf weeds found in our Weed ID Chart and helps with Australian weed identification. It explains:

• How viable weed seeds are over time?
• How many seeds do weeds produce? and
• At what depth do they germinate the best?

Table of Common Weed Properties.

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Weed ID Chart.

All the images below allow you to identify broadleaf weeds by photo. By clicking on an image it then links to a page for the weed.

Broadleaved Weeds.

Grass and Sedge Weeds.

All the images below allow you to identify sedges and grass weeds by photo, and simply clicking on an image then takes you to a page for that weed.

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Lawn weed control after you use the Weed ID Chart.

Once you use the Weed ID chart for Australian weed identification, and to identify weeds by photo, there are options for you to control them. There are several ways to class weed killers and weed control products.

• Pre-emergent or post-emergent weed killers.
• Contact or systemic.
• Granular or liquid.
• Chemical Group and
• Selective or non selective.

You use pre-emergent herbicides before weeds emerge, so you need to use these before you see weeds. These kill lawn weeds as they germinate and have no effect on weeds that you see. You use these for grass weeds like Winter grass and Summer grass, and some work against broadleaf weeds. They can be liquids or granulars.

Once weeds grow you need to use post-emergent herbicides. These can be contacts like MSMA, or systemics like the sulfonylureas. A good example of a post-emergent is ProForce Recondo, which is an alternative to Monument herbicide.

Contacts vs Systemics.

Contacts work when the chemical comes into contact with the plant, and work best on young weeds. Good examples are Diquat, Carfentrazone, plant oils, and herbicidal soaps.

Systemics work better on older weeds, and these move inside the plant to kill the weed. Examples are Glyphosate, Quinclorac, 2,4-D, and Dicamba.

Selective weed killers kill weeds without any damage to the turf, and only kill certain weeds. Good examples of these are Warhead Trio which kills only broadleaf weeds and not grasses. Non-selectives kill all vegetation including the turf.

More information to use along with this Weed ID Chart, is in our turf chemicals section or the free 2024 Guide to turf pesticides.

Correct use of the weed identification chart, allows you to identify weeds by photo. This helps you to know what lawn chemical to use, and will give you better results.