Ball, and M. Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Skip to main content. An official website of the United States government. Here's how you know. View all resources. Scientific Name:. Common Name:. Native To:.
Asia Everest et al. Date of U. Late s Everest et al. Means of Introduction:. Introduced as an ornamental and for erosion control Everest et al. Crowds out native species Everest et al.
University of Georgia. Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. Provides state, county, point and GIS data. Maps can be downloaded and shared. Google Images - Kudzu. YouTube - Invasive Species: Kudzu. A well-known example would be common wild grape. Kudzu produces long, hairy vines from a central root crown.
Kudzu has dark-green, hairy, alternate, compound leaves, 2 — 8 inches 5 — 20 cm in length with three oval- to heart-shaped leaflets 3 — 4 inches 8 — 10 cm long at the end; these leaves may be slightly or entirely lobed. Stems are also hairy. Vines can grow up to 30 to feet 9 — The vines have 0. Vertical kudzu vines in full sunlight produce flowers in late-summer; horizontal vines seldom produce flowers.
The flowers are typically red, purple, or magenta with a strong, grape-like aroma; pink or white flowers occur occasionally. The most common method of spread is by setting new root crowns at almost every node where horizontal trailing stems come in contact with bare soil this can be every few feet ; new vines will form at these nodes the following spring and will spread out in all available directions.
Kudzu tap roots can grow up to 12 feet 3. This may help kudzu to withstand long periods of drought. Kudzu usually does not flower until its third year, with flowers and seeds forming only on vertical climbing vines. Kudzu produces clusters of 20 — 30 hairy brown seed pods, 1. Each pod contains from 3 to 10 kidney bean-shaped seeds, of which only 1 or 2 seeds are viable. Dormant viable seeds are unable to germinate until after their seed coats have become water permeable as a result of physical scarification breaking the seed coat by abrasion or prolonged thermal stress.
Seeds deposited below the vines in the seed bank may take several years to germinate. This can be problematic during control efforts because it can result in the reemergence of the plants years after eradication was believed to have been achieved. It has been observed that kudzu in North America is more likely to grow asexually than by setting seed.
It appears that this is due to kudzu seedlings being outcompeted by vegetatively produced vines. Factors that help determine how invasive kudzu will be in any habitat appear to be climate and availability of light. Warmth and humidity are important factors, with greater colonization corresponding to warmer average annual temperatures and higher average humidity.
To reach additional light, the vines climb existing vegetation and hard vertical surfaces. Climate change may be making it easier for creeping vine to spread, as winters in many areas of the U.
Climate change also can lead to more regional drought, an opportunity for this versatile killer. Kudzu is able to weather dry periods with its deep root systems and then take over where native plants could not survive. Learn more about climate change here. It depends how large the patch is. Newer, smaller patches can be controlled with persistent weeding.
For larger growths, the vines should be cut near the ground and then carefully treated with one of a variety of herbicides. Indiana's Department of Natural Resources suggests that if herbicides are used to apply in the late summer when the plants are more susceptible to transferring the chemicals into storage organs making it more effective.
The best way to deal with kudzu or other invasive plants is to prevent them from spreading. For more ways to control kudzu, check out Dr. James H. Miller's Kudzu Eradication and Management paper. The best way to fight invasive species is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. And though many sources continue to repeat the unsupported claim that kudzu is spreading at the rate of , acres a year—an area larger than most major American cities—the Forest Service expects an increase of no more than 2, acres a year.
Even existing stands of kudzu now exude the odor of their own demise, an acrid sweetness reminiscent of grape bubble gum and stink bug. A study of one site showed a one-third reduction in kudzu biomass in less than two years. 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.
Yet the popular myth won a modicum of scientific respectability. Today, it frequently appears on popular top-ten lists of invasive species.
The official hype has also led to various other questionable claims—that kudzu could be a valuable source of biofuel and that it has contributed substantially to ozone pollution. As trees grew in the cleared lands near roadsides, kudzu rose with them. It appeared not to stop because there were no grazers to eat it back. But, in fact, it rarely penetrates deeply into a forest; it climbs well only in sunny areas on the forest edge and suffers in shade.
Still, along Southern roads, the blankets of untouched kudzu create famous spectacles. Bored children traveling rural highways insist their parents wake them when they near the green kudzu monsters stalking the roadside. It was an invasive that grew best in the landscape modern Southerners were most familiar with—the roadsides framed in their car windows.
It was conspicuous even at 65 miles per hour, reducing complex and indecipherable landscape details to one seemingly coherent mass.
0コメント