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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. Kudzu bugs are a recent addition to the U.S. list of invasive species. When you attempt to hand-pull or dig out th… Introduction: Americans were first introduced to kudzu at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, where … In the decades that followed, the plant's coverage expanded dramatically, consuming fields and forests throughout the region, while becoming a cultural touchstone for generations of southerners. I’d walk an extra mile to avoid patches of it and the writhing knots of snakes that everyone said were breeding within. Cookie Policy But they have a unique look that isn’t hard to identify. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that while vulnerable species are primarily in the Southeast, most lands protected as federal and state parks are in the West. Bored children traveling rural highways insist their parents wake them when they near the green kudzu monsters stalking the roadside. Kudzu monocultures typically contain thousands of individual plants per acre . Citation: Miller, James H.; Edwards, Boyd. In the often-cited poem “Kudzu,” Georgia novelist James Dickey teases Southerners with their own tall tales, invoking an outrageous kudzu-smothered world where families close the windows at night to keep the invader out, where the writhing vines and their snakes are indistinguishable. A native of Asia with many culinary and medicinal uses in the East, kudzu was introduced to America in large part in order to fight soil erosion. Kudzu is native to Asia, particularly China, Japan and Korea, and has been used in Eastern medicine for centuries. Kudzu is most prolific in areas where winters are mild (40 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (4-16 °C)), summer temperatures rise above 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 °C), the growing season is long, and annual precipitation is > 40 inches (1,000 mm) [51,66]. Kudzu has appeared larger than life because it’s most aggressive when planted along road cuts and railroad embankments—habitats that became front and center in the age of the automobile. It has been spreading rapidly in the southern U.S., "easily outpacing the use of herbicide spraying and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually". Cope spoke of kudzu in religious terms: Kudzu, he proclaimed on his Depression-era broadcasts, would make barren Southern farms “live again.” There were hundreds of thousands of acres in the South “waiting for the healing touch of the miracle vine.”. It was an invasive that grew best in the landscape modern Southerners were most familiar with—the roadsides framed in their car windows. Provides kudzu resources from sources with an interest in the prevention, control, or eradication of invasive species. It is also native to the south Pacific region, including Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. 1983. You will … It quickly got out of control and became the most infamous type of rampantly uncontrollable, smothering vegetation. Southern Journal of Applied Forestry. Kudzu is a perennial vine hailing from the pea family. As you walk closer to the vines you will locate intertwined clusters of them. Bill Finch is the lead horticulture and science advisor to the Mobile Botanical Gardens in Alabama. Now that scientists at last are attaching real numbers to the threat of kudzu, it’s becoming clear that most of what people think about kudzu is wrong. Yet the popular myth won a modicum of scientific respectability. Kudzu can be controlled with glyphosate but it may take several years of … The widely cited nine-million-acre number appears to have been plucked from a small garden club publication, not exactly the kind of source you expect a federal agency or academic journal to rely on. (Pueraria lobata, or P. thunbergiana), twining perennial vine that is a member of a genus belonging to the family Leguminosae. It grows quickly over other small plants, trees, and on to structures like telephone poles. KUDZU ALONG THE HIGHWAY... An oriental legume, whose runners grow from 20 to 50 feet in a single season, has been used in Mississippi since 1936 to prevent erosion. The more I investigate, the more I recognize that kudzu’s place in the popular imagination reveals as much about the power of American mythmaking, and the distorted way we see the natural world, as it does about the vine’s threat to the countryside. In the latest careful sampling, the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu occupies, to some degree, about 227,000 acres of forestland, an area about the size of a small county and about one-sixth the size of Atlanta. Terms of Use 1983. So if the all-consuming-kudzu myth is wrong, where did it come from? “The Vine that ate the South” is no longer just a southern problem either. Before you start swatting, check out our guide to kudzu bugs and the best practices for controlling them. In the end, kudzu may prove to be among the least appropriate symbols of the Southern landscape and the planet’s future. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. What helps Kudzu to thrive is its root system that forms very deep in the soil. Revegetation of sites following treatment is an important last step to ensure that any residual kudzu does not reestablish. As with most aggressive exotic species, eradication requires persistence in monitoring and thoroughness in treating patches during a multi-year program. According to research published in 2010 (Hickman et al. The U.S. government did its best to spread kudzu throughout the South. Kudzu is a perennial climbing vine native to eastern Asia that was recently found in Leamington, Ontario. Each flower is on a separate petiole that connects to the stem. But somehow they hopped a ride across an ocean and ended up in Georgia in 2009. What helps Kudzu to thrive is its root system that forms very deep in the soil. … In addition, Kudzu’s large dark green leaves make a picturesque covereing for rough roadbanks and hillsides along Mississippi’s pa… In 1998, Congress officially listed kudzu under the Federal Noxious Weed Act. Kudzu bugs are a type of stink bug. Read the instructions that come with your herbicide. Kudzu: Where did it come from? www.forestryimages.org. An endless procession of “kudzu” cafés, coffeehouses, bakeries, bars and even seafood and sake houses are distributed across the South, many of them easily found on the Atlanta-based Kudzu.com search engine. Conservation biologists are taking a closer look at the natural riches of the Southeastern United States, and they describe it as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, in many ways on par with tropical forests. And how can we stop it?. Still, along Southern roads, the blankets of untouched kudzu create famous spectacles. 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 is a perennial vine hailing from the pea family. What we know as kudzu (Pueraria montana) was brought from Asia to the U.S. in the late 19th century. The kudzu is a fast-growing, woody, somewhat hairy vine that may grow to a length of 18 m (60 feet) in one season. Our obsession with the vine hides the South. “If you based it on what you saw on the road, you’d say, dang, this is everywhere,” said Nancy Loewenstein, an invasive plants specialist with Auburn University. Introduced in the late nineteenth century from Asia, it now covers more than a quarter million acres in Alabama and more than seven million acres in other southeastern states, swallowing up abandoned buildings and farms. Introduced from Asia in the late 19th century as a garden novelty, but not widely planted until the 1930s, kudzu is now America’s most infamous weed. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. 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