Discussion for article #237862
1 Like
Oh My ! – One could only wish –
When a colleague moved to the Research Triangle area, I asked how she liked kudzu and strip malls. She had to look up kudzu, but now sees how ubiquitous it is. I suspect it’s part of why North Carolina is such a mind-numbingly boring place to drive.
In Chicago we don’t need kudzu; we’ve got buckthorn.
A nice survey of the social history, but I wish there were a bit more of the botany and agriculture. Were the claims made on kudzu’s behalf false? What makes it so hard to eradicate? Why isn’t it a major problem in Japan? I concede that these aren’t quite in TPM’s usual bailiwick, but the essay feels incomplete without addressing them.
6 Likes
Goats do love it. They have been used throughout the ATL Metro as a lower cost/earth friendly solution, cause you cant kill the stuff…worse than English Ivy. The leaves are so waxy pesticides dont penetrate. You have to physically pull it up by the roots and constantly be vigilant that you dont get sprouts.
3 Likes
And then,.planet of weeds.
1 Like
It’s not “hard to eradicate” its impossible to do so. It will climb and kill just about anything ( my neighbor has a large Live Oak that is succumbing to it but he thinks, being from Maine, the Kudzu is pretty ). In Japan the plant is controlled by herbivores that graze on it and climate. Here in Florida it grows year round and has no native predators or competitors. It is beautiful to look at when it drapes an entire forest edge…that is until the pines, palms and oaks die.
It sucks. Cut it off at the base. Drill into the stump with a 1/2 bit. Fill the holes with Round Up. You will stun it for a year…and then its back. Dig it out and leave just a small piece of root…its back.
4 Likes
“How do you get rid of kudzu?”
“You move”
6 Likes
Back in the 70s, my eco-fantasy was to distill fuel from it. Thus solving the energy crisis and kudzu overgrowth in one fell swoop 
.
4 Likes
Though hardly as pervasive and, apparently more climate sensitive, it’s Scotch Broom here in the PNW. Introduced by the state and federal transportation people to halt erosion during freeway construction, it, like dandelions, goes to town in disturbed soil. It’s at least controllable as, if cut repeatedly, it will die in place. However, neither the state nor feds, of course, have the money to do this.
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/scotchbroom.shtml
Best book on this topic is “Ecological Imperialism.”
“(h)erbivores that graze on it . . .” And just which herbivores would these be as Japan has little wildlife in general and they certainly aren’t feeding it to what little domestic livestock there are.
I believe that it, like most plants, has more herbaceous competition in Japan whereas it has none in the U.S.
Revisited my ancestral roots (don’t judge now)a few years ago after a 30 year absence. Where West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky converge, it was astonishing to witness mountaintop removal and its effects on landscape as well as the horror of this vine. The landscape was not just being changed–it was becoming unrecognizable. The landscape was becoming a flattened jungle.
1 Like
Read a sifi novel where it was crossed with kiwi, resulting in fruit available for the asking and sustained the population once armageddon occurred, fruit, booze, fodder, etc…
1 Like
Kudzu seems to be a prolific source of biomass for local diesel production and gasoline additives (much better than corn!); browse for animals; soil enrichment (nitrogen fixation, composting and biochar – in situ). Cutting and burying it would be be practical carbon sequestration.
Don’t fight kudzu, work with it symbiotically!
Exactly. So it was pushed as a forage plant, yet not a word about whether there are domestic animals that eat the stuff. Best control of poison ivy is a herd of goats. Is there no equivalent for kudzu? Why? I have no idea what the answers would be, but I’d find an explication fascinating.
2 Likes
Goats really do like kudzu and, being a legume, it is high in protein. Granted goats can’t kill it, but they can control it if at a high stocking rate.
I would suspect that if you cut the big “trunks” that go too high for goats to reach and then ran them at a high enough stocking rate to eat all the shoots that then sprout, that you would keep it under control. There has been lots of work done investigating the use of goats to clean out overgrown pastures and control brush in cow pastures and under transmission lines to show how to go about it. Unlike other woody plants like oak or cedar, kudzu is palatable and nutritious so goats won’t suffer from being forced to browse on it.
1 Like
Great story, nicely written.
It appears magical solutions are not new to the South.
Thistle, that’s my bitch. Cut one-gain five, dig one-start crop.
I’m currently on a thistle mission, slowly digging one at a time and burning.
We’ll see.
2 Likes