Kudzu and You

If you’ve ever been down to the banks of the Mississippi River, then you’ve seen the landscape and know that it’s covered with this monstrous, all-consuming plant called Kudzu. When you’re down there you can see how it climbs the trees, covers the ground, and sometimes, down in the bluffs, it even tries to cross the roads. Many people think they know all about the invasive plant, but do you really know everything there is about Kudzu?  

Kudzu is an invasive species of plant first brought over from Japan to help with erosion along the Mississippi River. It has currently consumed over seven million acres of land in the United States alone. While it is mainly thought of as a plant that only affects the southern portion of the U.S., Kudzu has been found as far North as Maine. From 1935 to the mid-1950’s farmers were encouraged by the government to plant the vine and help bring fertility back to southern farms.

It didn’t work that way.

The government stopped paying farmers to plant Kudzu around 1945. Now there was no way to make money off the plant. Kudzu had been promised to solve some of the issues farming in the South presented and it ended up creating more problems.

Kudzu grows about one foot per day depending on the time of year. Because of the amount of foliage Kudzu produces, other plants are smothered and prevented from getting sunlight, so nothing else can grow underneath its blanket of leaves. Trees have also been uprooted in the wake of its continual growth.

There are ways to get rid of Kudzu. The most well-known recommendation is to find the root of the Kudzu and cut it before mowing the area once a month for two summer growing seasons. Another method was discovered by a teenager named Jacob Schindler. He found that inserting Helium into the soil of the invaded area would kill the Kudzu without harming the surrounding vegetation.

If you have found a method that gets rid of this pest of a plant be sure to email it to us at contact@cypressmag.com.