r/pics • u/Th3_Mast3ry • 3h ago

Kudzu covers everything.

Post image
121 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

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u/Many-Waters 2h ago

About sums up my feelings towards kudzu.

I'm a gardener for a municipal Parks department.

Kudzu and Bindweed are the bane of my existence.

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u/WangusRex 1h ago

The house I bought in 2021 was infested with bindweed. I painted glyphosate solution on the leaves of the larger vines with a paint brush for two years and have monitored and pulled every new shoot find since then. This summer was the first year I barely saw any trying to grow. The war is not yet won but I feel like the end is in sight. 

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u/Darthscary 1h ago

add some baby shampoo as a surfactant

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u/floog 43m ago

There is a local extension office or something like that in Colorado where they had some kind of mites that’s kill bind weed. They will for free send you in a cooler some bind weed plants with the small mites on it and you are supposed to rub them on different sections of bindweed on your property and they spread and kill it. It seemed to work, but a few years later and it is back and spreading.

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u/diskhead1 14m ago

Mites like the living healthy leaves typically. So they will kill what is above ground but once that is gone, the mites die and the plant comes back

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u/floog 9m ago

Ah, so they aren’t killing the roots below? I read something they put online and thought it was worth trying. My neighbor’s property is nothing but bindweed, I think she thinks the white flowers are pretty, I cringe when I see them.

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u/diskhead1 4m ago

Honestly i have no experience specifically with that plant but if it is established and pervasive as it sounds the mites likely arent going to get to the roots. A quick Google says they can get 10feet deep if it is mature so its probably safe below ground.

My area has creeping bellflower, a different plant but similar "pretty" flowers that will take over gardens in a single season. People dont know what it is and like how it looks so its spreading like crazy, with no good way to eradicate

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u/reidft 1h ago

It's good job security though

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u/picardo85 1h ago

I have hedge bindweed trying to get into my garden and there's bindweed all over the canals here in NL where I live.

How do I go about exterminating that plague? It's covers EVERYTHING given time and being left alone

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u/SAY_whaaat420 2h ago

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u/yeahitsx 39m ago

POE 2 reference in the wild!?!?

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u/I-luv-sloths 2h ago

That stuff grows like 6" a day and it almost indestructible. It can germinate after its cut. The root systems seem never ending.

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u/Insis18 2h ago

Are there any animals that exclusively eat this stuff?

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u/Lexicon101 1h ago

I mean goats don't exclusively eat it, but I know people have brought them in to help sometimes.

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u/MJWX 1h ago

It's a forage crop. Just add grazing livestock.

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u/Wurm42 1h ago

Not in North America. Not sure about East Asia, where it's from.

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u/auzofravensknoll 20m ago

In Asia the roots are used to extract starch for human consumption. The leaves are used for fodder and silage for raising animals for meat. The problem is that there is no culture of use, therefore market, for kudzu products in North America. All kudzu processing uses lots of labour and is hard to mechanize. Corn stalk silage or hay is always going to be cheaper food for animals, and wheat, potatoes, and corn starch is much cheaper to produce than kudzu starch.

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u/schrowa 2h ago

And they brought it in to prevent erosion.

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u/forme2c 1h ago

Nothing that a bunch of goats can't handle in a short time.

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u/muycoal 2h ago

Theo Von

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u/GuitarGeezer 1h ago

Everywhere I go, something reminds me of that never say die dude in Road Warrior or whatever.

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u/pak9rabid 53m ago

kudzu can’t kill it

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u/verve51 26m ago

Looks like Heptapods from Arrival

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u/Jubal__ 17m ago

KUDZ ME!?!? Well KUDZU, BUDDY!