Where do people get the idea that it’s “browse for animals”? Were this the case, you could just let your herd of pigs or cows have the run of the place. Goats may eat it, but they eat blackberry cane with glove-piercing thorns.
Once it’s begun to take over a landscape, it’s at a size that is no longer of much interest to herd animals leaving goats as the only control option. However, it’s at the point where you’d have to turn millions of goats loose on it for a couple of decades to control it.
When we moved to Portland nearly 30 years ago I saw a lot of Scotch Broom planted along expressways. I thought the yellow flowers were really pretty. Planted one in our back yard and of course it did great until I realized that I was allergic to it and I didn’t really have allergies until the Scotch Broom came along. Demolished that bush.
Well goats were a significant factor in the desertification of northern Africa so they ought to be able to control kudzu if there are enough of them. As someone pointed out in another post, kudzu ruins the scenery as EVERYTHING is draped in those green curtains.
From blog entry by Max Shores, media producer at U. of Alabama.
Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Countries were invited to
build exhibits to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. The Japanese
government constructed a beautiful garden filled with plants from their
country. The large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms of kudzu captured
the imagination of American gardeners who used the plant for ornamental
purposes.
Florida nursery operators, Charles and Lillie Pleas, discovered that
animals would eat the plant and promoted its use for forage in the
1920s. Their Glen Arden Nursery in Chipley sold kudzu plants through the
mail. A historical marker there proudly proclaims “Kudzu Developed
Here.”
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Soil Conservation
Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Hundreds of young men were
given work planting kudzu through the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Farmers were paid as much as eight dollars an acre as incentive to plant
fields of the vines in the 1940s.
Round Up is a ubiquitously used weed killer. Many key plants such as corn and soy have been bred to be resistant to it, so it can be sprayed over entire fields to control weeds. Thanks to your good buddies at Monsanto. http://web.mit.edu/demoscience/Monsanto/about.html
Needless to say, and to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, one of the key ingredients, long cleared for safe use, is now believed to be, wait for it, a carcinogen.
I remain amazed that we human beings look at the massive use of chemicals in our everyday life, from farm to home for cleaning, and even polluting the atmosphere with smells, and are then surprised when cancer rates have been skyrocketing for decades.
