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Managing Kudzu, an Invasive Plant

Under development

An alien invader like kudzu can dislodge native species, disrupt local ecosystems, and cause widespread economic damage. "To say we're under attack from invasive plants is a gross understatement," said Art Dyas of Montrose, a land manager and forester who moderated the workshop (April, 2000) at the Auburn University Gulf Coast Experimental Substation. More than 120 foresters, landscapers, gardeners, environmentalists and government employees heard speakers talk about ways to fight back - including the proper mix of chemicals and the best time to apply them.

Foresters and environmentalists hope that public awareness and correct, consistent burning, grazing and herbicide spraying can beat back the non-native plants enough to let the native species hold their ground.

"Maybe the best we can do with these strong invasive species is to co-exist with them, to live with them, to manage them," Miller said.

Besides landscaping uses, many invasive plant species have been brought to the United States for erosion control or to feed livestock. But when the plants came, no one brought along their enemies from back home, said Miller, explaining that Mother Nature provides predators to keep ecosystems in balance.

For example, kudzu, in its native southeast Asia, "has a terrible beast over there - a wood bore - that gets in its roots and ruins it," said Miller.

Dyas said that kudzu, however, "is a choirboy compared to cogongrass." Also like kudzu, cogongrass has a freeway along sunny roadsides, where work crews can't keep up with it.

Cornell University scientists reported in January that non-native plant, insect and aquatic species cost the U.S. economy $138 billion a year, including an estimated $23.4 billion in direct crop damage or losses and $4 billion for impaired commercial timber production.

Approximately 400 of the 958 plant and animal species listed as threatened or endangered are placed at risk because of damage from non-indigenous species, according to the January article in BioScience magazine, a publication of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Last year (1999), after 200 scientists sent a letter to Vice President Al Gore, the Clinton administration stepped up its response to the problem. President Clinton created the National Invasive Species Council, co-chaired by three Cabinet secretaries, to coordinate 20 federal agencies to address the problem. Clinton gave the council until Aug. 2 to come up with a comprehensive plan to attack the spread of invasive species. Congress provided $30 million last year to fund the work by the agencies. The Clinton administration is asking for $40 million this year to keep it going.

In January, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, the co-chairman of the Invasive Species Council, announced that USDA scientists had found a fungus effective at knocking out kudzu. In greenhouse and field studies over two years, the fungus from the sicklepod plant found in the Southeast killed 100 percent of kudzu weeds in greenhouse and field studies.

The Missouri state Senate is considering a bill that would make it the "duty" of private landowners, various state agencies, local governments and private industry to control and eradicate the weeds on their property. The bill already has passed the state House of Representatives.

While it may sound extreme, Ellis sees the wisdom in outlawing villainous weeds and pressing landowners and public agencies into taking responsibility.

see the agricultural search site

see the www.Foresttrust.org data base on vines

See http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/bio/botany.html

See Harrington, T.B., L.T. Rader-dixon, and J.W. Taylor, Jr. 2003. Kudzu (Pueraria montana) community responses to herbicides, burning, and high-density loblolly pine. Weed Science 51: 965-974.

You Ain't From Around Here: Exotic Invasive of the Quarter

Kudzu (Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr. var. lobata (Willd.) Maesen and S.M. Almeida

By: Jennifer Gagnon, Virginia Tech November, 2007

Back in 1876, the folks at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition introduced this vine from China and Japan as a solution to control erosion, a tasty treat for livestock, and a charming item for folk crafts. In the early 1930's the Soil Erosion Service paid southern farmers $8 an acre to grow it - resulting in 1.2 million planted acres. However, by 1953, the kudzu invasion was on the move and the USDA took kudzu off of the list of recommended cover plants. For the rest of the story, go to: http://www.cnr.vt.edu/forestupdate/newsletters/Volume21/invasive_kudzu.p df

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision May 3, 2000.