Foxtail grass can overtake gardens, injure or kill pets

By Marilyn McKinley

OSU master gardener volunteer

I am at war.

Just so you know how I feel about this weed, I hate it with all the passion in me.

The last two years, foxtail, a nasty annual grass, has invaded my flowers beds.

I am not going to put up with it and neither should you.

It is aggressive. It will take over. It will reseed and wait to appear even more aggressively next year – and it can cause serious injury, infection and even death to dogs and cats.

Let’s battle this invader.

This weed is not a native to our area; and it is a major agricultural menace throughout the Midwest.

It is native to southern Europe, north Africa and southwestern Asia. It is believed to have been accidently introduced to the United States in the early 1800s and easily spread nearly everywhere.

The seeds are so easily dispersed – by wind, animals, even humans who are trying to pull it out when seed heads are full and ready to be dispersed.

As mentioned, it’s an annual – if pulling it out by hand, you must do it early in the season. It is easy to pull, but it is not so easy to identify at this early stage.

Unfortunately, we don’t tend to notice this weed until the foxtail-like seed head appears – full of seeds.

There are several kinds of foxtail – green, yellow, bristly and giant are often seen in our area. The “tails” are usually soft (except for the bristly type) and have relatively broad leaves.

On to the kill.

It’s best to stop it before it germinates by using a pre-emergent weed killer designed for crabgrass. Check the label to be sure.

If it’s already growing, a different approach is needed.

Tilling your landscape beds (a very difficult practice) or using herbicides containing glyphosate when it is small and has not developed seed heads should be effective.

Or go organic and use vinegar. But know that common household vinegar is only 5 percent acetic acid, which may not be as effective as you want. Herbicidal vinegar is 10 percent to 20 percent acetic acid and is dangerous to use. It will kill foxtail, especially in bright sunlight. But it is also nonselective – it will kill all plant life it touches.

Good spray coverage is essential, but it cannot be applied more frequently that every two weeks. Worst of all, it can cause nasty chemical burns if more than 10 percent acetic acid is used – and you are not careful. And it is not cheap.

Mulch can help, but if you don’t put down some kind of light barrier, like newspaper, you can almost be guaranteed seed will germinate and foxtail will return.

If you decide to pull the mature weed, carefully cut off the seed heads and toss right into a garbage bag – before you yank out the roots. If you don’t, you become a major spreader of the seeds.

So what am I doing to get rid of this nasty annual weed? All of the above – and then crossing my fingers.

To learn more about controlling this and other problem weeds in the landscape, visit http://go.osu.edu/landscapeweeds.