Family: Poaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Naturalized
  
• Includes a large number of spontaneously occurring, weedy plants which mimic the crop in their vegetative and floral morphologies
  
• Thrives in tropical climates
  
• Grown between sea level and 1,800 m in the tropics (broad elevation range)
  
• May cause nitrate poisoning
  
• Possible host of pests and pathogens
  
• Tolerates many soil conditions (and potentially able to exploit many different habitat types)
  
• Self-compatible and wind-pollinated
  
• Annual (reproductive in <1 year)
  
• Seed contaminant
  
• Prolific seed production
  
• Tolerates cutting and grazing by animals

Low Risk Traits:

• Domesticated forms of this grass valuable for human use (grain and forage)
  
• Forage and fodder grass
  
• Not known to spread vegetatively
  
• Seeds predominantly gravity and human-dispersed
  
• Herbicides may provide effective control