Where is kudzu in the us

The USDA is currently investigating a bioherbicide containing the fungal pathogen Myrothecium verrucaria , and initial trials with kudzu are promising. Targeted grazing by livestock, including cattle, goats , sheep and pigs, is also effective. In eastern Asia, there is a long history of using kudzu for food, fiber and medicine.

Leaves, tender shoots and flowers are eaten raw and cooked. Starch derived from the roots is used as a thickening agent, to coat foods before frying, and in noodles and desserts. The dried root has been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a variety of maladies, including digestive disorders, diabetes, colds, fevers, headaches, cardiovascular problems, alcoholism and the symptoms of menopause.

Fiber from the stems has been used to make paper, fabric, basketry, rope and as a stuffing for cushions. More recently, kudzu has been incorporated in soaps, lotions and other beauty products; it has been researched as a potential source of biofuel ; and microbreweries have incorporated kudzu as a flavoring in beer! Marc S. Frank is an Extension botanist and a biological scientist in the University of Florida Herbarium. In mature leaves, the terminal leaflet is usually symmetrically lobed and the two lateral leaflets are asymmetrically lobed.

In summer to fall, kudzu produces erect clusters of purple to wine-red flowers that smell like grape candy or grape soda. Flowers are followed by dangling seed pods covered in golden hairs. By the turn of the century, kudzu was available through mail-order catalogs.

By , through the efforts of C. Pleas of Chipley, Florida, kudzu was promoted as inexpensive forage for livestock. In the s, kudzu reached the height of its prominence. The Soil Erosion Service later renamed the Soil Conservation Service and now the Natural Resource Conservation Service , established by Congress in , was charged to reduce soil erosion caused by poor farming practices in the South.

About 85 million kudzu plants were given to southern landowners by the Soil Erosion Service for land revitalization and to reduce soil erosion and add nitrogen to the soil. The Civilian Conservation Corps also planted kudzu throughout the South.

About 3 million acres of kudzu had been planted on farms by Ironically, due to difficulties in establishment, many of these initial plantings did not survive.

In the s, numerous kudzu clubs were formed throughout the South. Kudzu festivals were held, and kudzu queens were crowned. In , Channing Cope, a journalist and radio show host in Covington, Georgia, founded the Kudzu Club of America, which eventually had a membership of about 20, individuals. By the early s, kudzu had largely become a nuisance. It had spread rapidly throughout the South because of the long growing season, warm climate, plentiful rainfall, and lack of disease and insect enemies.

Abandonment of farmland during this time contributed to the uncontrolled spread of kudzu. In , the United States Department of Agriculture removed kudzu from the list of cover plants permissible under the Agricultural Conservation Program. In , the Soil Conservation Service limited its recommendation of kudzu to areas far removed from developed areas.

Congress voted in to place kudzu on the Federal Noxious Weed list, where it remained for a few years. While no longer on the Federal Noxious Weed list, kudzu is currently listed as a noxious weed in 13 states.

It is estimated that kudzu may cover more than one-quarter million acres in Alabama. There are also scattered reports of kudzu as far north as Michigan and New York, with populations in Ontario, Oregon, and Washington. Kudzu produces high-quality forage that, when young, is quite palatable to livestock and poultry. The forage quality varies with management and season, but it is not unusual for kudzu hay to have a crude protein content of 15 to 18 percent and a total digestible nutrient value TDN of more than 60 percent on a dry-matter basis.

The overall quality decreases as the amount of large vines increases relative to leaves. Kudzu also retains its forage value until frost and can even be of some value for grazing for a short time after frost.

Unfortunately, the use of kudzu as a forage plant has definite limitations. Although kudzu appears to make a great deal of growth, it produces low to moderate forage yields, usually around 2 to 4 tons of dry matter per acre per year.

In addition, kudzu is difficult to harvest and bale because of its vining growth habit. It is possible to remove two cuttings of hay per year without damaging the kudzu stand. The first cutting should be made in late June or early July and the second in the fall, just before frost. Because it will not shed water well, kudzu hay should be placed under shelter for protection after it is baled.

Kudzu can also be harvested for silage, but the silage is light and difficult to pack. Some Alabama farmers still harvest kudzu from fields managed for this purpose by annual or biennial harvesting. It is most frequently used in this manner during dry periods, since its deep root system allows it to obtain moisture for growth when other forage species cannot.

All types of grazing animals will readily eat kudzu, but frequent defoliation over 3 to 4 years can destroy stands. Therefore, kudzu has limited value as a grazing crop except on a very temporary basis.

The negative impacts of livestock on kudzu tend to relegate it to forests, roadsides, right-of-ways, and non-crop areas where livestock do not have access. Goats and sheep have been used in vegetation management programs for kudzu control. Deer are known to browse kudzu but do not have any meaningful negative impacts.

The interactions of kudzu with other herbivores are largely unknown. Although kudzu is widely assumed to have significant negative ecological impacts, the influence of kudzu on biodiversity and ecological processes are surprisingly poorly studied. Anecdotal reports and general observations suggest that the dense shading created by kudzu significantly reduces native plant biodiversity.

Kudzu growing in forest plantations can weigh down and smother seedlings and saplings. Larger trees blanketed by kudzu may be more prone to wind throw. Like most Southern children, I accepted, almost as a matter of faith, that kudzu grew a mile a minute and that its spread was unstoppable. I had no reason to doubt declarations that kudzu covered millions of acres, or that its rampant growth could consume a large American city each year. I believed, as many still do, that kudzu had eaten much of the South and would soon sink its teeth into the rest of the nation.

Perhaps it was while I watched horses and cows mowing fields of kudzu down to brown stubs. I found it odd that kudzu had become a global symbol for the dangers of invasive species, yet somehow rarely posed a serious threat to the rich Southern landscapes I was trying to protect as a conservationist.

Kudzu might have forever remained an obscure front porch ornament had it not been given a boost by one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns in U. But in , as dust storms damaged the prairies, Congress declared war on soil erosion and enlisted kudzu as a primary weapon.

More than 70 million kudzu seedlings were grown in nurseries by the newly created Soil Conservation Service. Many historians believe it was the persuasive power of a popular radio host and Atlanta Constitution columnist named Channing Cope that finally got those seedlings in the ground. He was, as cultural geographer Derek Alderman suggests, an evangelist.

Railroad and highway developers, desperate for something to cover the steep and unstable gashes they were carving into the land, planted the seedlings far and wide. There were kudzu queens and regionwide kudzu planting contests. By the early s, Cope had started the Kudzu Club of America, with a membership of 20, and a goal of planting eight million acres across the South.

By , only a little more than a million acres had been planted, and much of it was quickly grazed out or plowed under after federal payments stopped. By the early s, the Soil Conservation Service was quietly back-pedaling on its big kudzu push. But the myth of kudzu had been firmly rooted. Those roadside plantings—isolated from grazing, impractical to manage, their shoots shimmying up the trunks of second-growth trees—looked like monsters.

The miraculous vine that might have saved the South had become, in the eyes of many, a notorious vine bound to consume it.