Kudzu bugs are a type of stink bug. Cookie Policy The Japanese kudzu bug, first found in a garden near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport six years ago, apparently hitched a plane ride and is now infesting vines throughout the South, sucking the plants’ vital juices. The plant was widely marketed as an ornamental plant that would provide shade for porches as well as a high protein content for livestock fodder and as a cover for soil erosion in the 20th century. The vines can grow up and over almost any structure and literally covers objects with its fast-growing vegetation. Kudzu thrives through drought and hot temperatures, but continuous removal of all vegetative parts during extreme weather will kill kudzu over time. The vines can grow up and over almost any structure and literally covers objects with its fast-growing vegetation. 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.S. history. As a young naturalist growing up in the Deep South, I feared kudzu. 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. It’s as if many have come to view the Southeast as little more than a kudzu desert. Nothing seems to stop it. It’s related to five species in the genus Pueraria (P. montana, P. lobata, P. edulis, P. phaseoloides and P. thomsoni). Bill Finch is the lead horticulture and science advisor to the Mobile Botanical Gardens in Alabama. Julia Tyler (1820-1889) was an American first lady (1844-1845) and the second wife of John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States. Continue “The Vine that ate the South” is no longer just a southern problem either. But in 1935, as dust storms damaged the prairies, Congress declared war on soil erosion and enlisted kudzu as a primary weapon. Kudzu has the ability to cycle nitrogen through the soil and the air at a rate higher than many other plants, and research has found that nitrogen rates are higher in areas where kudzu is plentiful. 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. www.forestryimages.org. Posted Date: January 1, 2000 In the decades that followed kudzu’s formal introduction at the 1876 World’s Fair Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, farmers found little use for a vine that could take years to establish, was nearly impossible to harvest and couldn’t tolerate sustained grazing by horses or cattle. Look for trifoliate leaves, or formations with 3 leaflets attached at each node. Yet the popular myth won a modicum of scientific respectability. 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. Kudzu Flower Photo: The vine produces a long stem of beautiful purple to redish-purple flowers. Repeated applications are usually required to kill every root crown. You will … There is a spot of yellow on each stem of flowers. The plant was first brought to North America in 1876 to landscape a garden at the United States Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Terms of Use Southern Journal of Applied Forestry. It was an invasive that grew best in the landscape modern Southerners were most familiar with—the roadsides framed in their car windows. Kudzu cares nothing about blue or red states, and it is now found coast to coast and border to border. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Kudzu is native to Asia, particularly China, Japan and Korea, and has been used in Eastern medicine for centuries. The Latin scientific name for Kudzu, or the kudzu vine, is Pueraria lobata or Pueraria thunbergiana.See the related link(s) listed below for more information: Where did kudzu come from? 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]. They have alternate and compound leaves, with three wide leaflets with hairy margins. Yep, you may smell them before you see them. What Are Kudzu Bugs and Where the Heck Did They Come From. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. All 3 leaves will be … 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". Still, along Southern roads, the blankets of untouched kudzu create famous spectacles. Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Magazine And though many sources continue to repeat the unsupported claim that kudzu is spreading at the rate of 150,000 acres a year—an area larger than most major American cities—the Forest Service expects an increase of no more than 2,500 acres a year. Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas. And because it looked as if it covered everything in sight, few people realized that the vine often fizzled out just behind that roadside screen of green. Read the instructions that come with your herbicide. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study, the use of combined management programs can control kudzu more quickly than individual methods in use today.. An invasive weed, kudzu was introduced to the United States in the late 1800s. Our obsession with the vine hides the South. As with most aggressive exotic species, eradication requires persistence in monitoring and thoroughness in treating patches during a multi-year program. Cut the Vines. Unfortunately, it quickly became a problem because of its rapid growth. More than 70 million kudzu seedlings were grown in nurseries by the newly created Soil Conservation Service. There is a spot of yellow on each stem of flowers. All land owners in an infestation area must coopera… Kudzu definition is - a fast-growing Asian vine (Pueraria lobata) of the legume family that is used for forage and erosion control and is often a serious weed in the southeastern U.S.. All land owners in an infestation area must coopera… It was conspicuous even at 65 miles per hour, reducing complex and indecipherable landscape details to one seemingly coherent mass. Farmers still couldn’t find a way to make money from the crop. As a botanist and horticulturist, I couldn’t help but wonder why people thought kudzu was a unique threat when so many other vines grow just as fast in the warm, wet climate of the South. Kudzu leaf and flower Southern Journal of Applied Forestry. Posted Date: January 1, 2000 Repeated applications are usually required to kill every root crown. According to research published in 2010 (Hickman et al. Our species profiles include selected highly relevant resources for the species (organized by source), and access to all species related resources included on our site. I’m not sure when I first began to doubt. He was, as cultural geographer Derek Alderman suggests, an evangelist. Kudzu is spreading in the South and control measures are required on large acreages. Kudzu was introduced into gardens in the early 1900s and was later used for forage. In places where it was once relatively easy to get a photograph of kudzu, the bug-infested vines are so crippled they can’t keep up with the other roadside weeds. Some discovered a kind of perverse pleasure in its rank growth, as it promised to engulf the abandoned farms, houses and junkyards people couldn’t bear to look at anymore. Though “not terribly worried” about the threat of kudzu, Loewenstein calls it “a good poster child” for the impact of invasive species precisely because it has been so visible to so many. There were kudzu queens and regionwide kudzu planting contests. 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. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. Kudzu: Where did it come from? Kudzu, an invasive vine that is spreading across the southeastern United States and northward, is a major contributor to large-scale increases of the pollutant surface ozone, according to a … Its introduction has produced devastating environmental consequences. Native Range: Kudzu is found throughout Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It cannot be over emphasized that total eradication of kudzu is necessary to prevent re-growth. Kudzu bugs are a recent addition to the U.S. list of invasive species. When you attempt to hand-pull or dig out th… By 1900 kudzu was available through mail order and sold mainly as an inexpensive livestock forage. The name is derived from the Japanese name for the plant East Asian arrowroot(Pueraria montana var. In the 1930s and 40s, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression and aftermath of the Dust Bowl, kudzu … Look for trifoliate leaves, or formations with 3 leaflets attached at each node. 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. A writer for Deep South Magazine recently gushed that kudzu is “the ultimate icon for the South...an amazing metaphor for just about every issue you can imagine within Southern Studies.” One blogger, surveying the kudzu-littered literature of the modern South, dryly commented that all you have to do to become a Southern novelist is “throw in a few references to sweet tea and kudzu.”. The Japanese government constructed a beautiful garden filled with plants from their country. The Kudzu vine can grow up to 12 feet in a day and is not slowed down by poor conditions. Its growth is not “sinister,” as Willie Morris, the influential editor of Harper’s Magazine, described in his many stories and memoirs about life in Yazoo City, Mississippi. 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. 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.”. Kudzu came from Japan.kudzu was brought over from Japan to prevent erosion during WWII. Kudzu is a fast-growing vine native to the subtropical regions of China and Japan, as well as some other Pacific islands.1, 2 The plant consists of leaves (containing 3 broad oval leaflets), purple flowers, and curling tendril spikes.3, 4 Because the stem grows up to 20 m in length and due to its extensive root system, kudzu has been used to control soil erosion. Perhaps it was while I watched horses and cows mowing fields of kudzu down to brown stubs. Kudzu Origin Kudzu was introduced from Japan to the United States at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 as an ornamental and a forage crop plant. In Asia kudzu serves as one of the favorite hosts for many species of insects including the nefarious kudzu bug and, until recently, careful inspections and lady luck barred entry of this insect to North America. These bugs got busy right away laying eggs and migrating out farther across the south. Control can be accomplished by persistent applications of effecti We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website.By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.