Growth and development of the weed itchgrass (Rottboelia exaltata L.f.)Itchgrass (Rottboelia exaltata L.f.) is a weed that has presented fast dissemination in sugar-cane fields in Brazil, causing significant yield losses to the crop. Therefore, this research had the objective of evaluating the growth, vegetative development and reproductive capacity of the species, as a mechanism of improving the management to be adopted. The experiment was conducted in the greenhouse of ESALQ/USP, Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil, during the months of July to October 2004; when 14 periodic evaluations of growth were done, for determination of: fresh and dry weight (total, shoot and roots), leaf area and phenology. After flowering, the number of racemes of 16 plants, and the number of seeds of 100 racemes were evaluated. It was observed a fast initial growth of the plants, once the flowering occurred 49 days after seeding. About the end of the cycle, plants showed values near than 120 g, 25 g and 1600 cm² of total fresh weight, total dry weight and leaf area, respectively. On average, plants emitted a total of 163 racemes with 12 seeds each, that corresponds to more than 2,000 seeds per plant. These results showed the high growth capacity and reproductive hability of R. exaltata, explaining the reasons that make this weed a new potential problem for Brazilian agriculture.
biology; Rottboelia exaltata; growth; reproduction
