Higher classification Sorghum | Genus Sorghum Rank Species | |
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Similar Sorghum, Grasses, Crabgrass, Echinochloa, Setaria | ||
Johnson grass or Johnsongrass, Sorghum halepense, is a plant in the grass family, Poaceae, native to the Mediterranean region, but grows throughout Europe and the Middle East. The plant has been introduced to all continents except Antarctica, and most larger islands and archipelagos. It reproduces by rhizomes and seeds.
Johnson grass has been used for forage and to stop erosion, but it is often considered a weed because:
This species occurs in crop fields, pastures, abandoned fields, rights-of-way, forest edges, and along streambanks. It thrives in open, disturbed, rich, bottom ground, particularly in cultivated fields. Johnson grass resistant to the common herbicide glyphosate has been found in Argentina and the United States. It is considered to be one of the ten worst weeds in the world.
It is named after an Alabama plantation owner, Colonel William Johnson, who sowed its seeds on river-bottom farm land circa 1840. The plant was already established in several US states a decade earlier, having been introduced as a prospective forage or accidentally as a seedlot contaminant.
Johnson grass awareness
