{"id":57704,"date":"2025-09-24T14:29:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=57704"},"modified":"2025-09-24T14:29:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:29:45","slug":"eat-or-be-eaten-kudzu-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=57704","title":{"rendered":"Eat or be Eaten – Kudzu Style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kuzdu has a complicated relationship with humans<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, it is a nitrogen-fixing legume (related to the pea) that pulls nitrogen out of the air and fertilizes the soil. It’s great at preventing erosion, cows and goats love to eat it, and much of the plant is also edible for humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But anyone who’s driven up IH59 thru Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee will recall mile after mile of kudzu, choking every plant in its path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WLBOTT<\/strong> Outpost Near Chattanooga, Tenn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kudzu – the Nuts and Bolts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Kudzu<\/strong>, also called Japanese arrowroot or Chinese arrowroot, is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing deciduous perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands. It is invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vine densely climbs over other plants and trees and grows so rapidly that it smothers and kills them by blocking most of the sunlight and taking root space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dairy cows grazing on kudzu in Columbia County, Georgia, c.\u20091950s (Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kudzu is an infamous weed in the United States, where it can be found in 32 states. It is common along roadsides and other disturbed areas throughout most of the southeast, as far north as rural areas of Pulaski County, Illinois, and along the East Coast in sparser populations as north as the New York City Metropolitan Area and Boston, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n


Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States at the Japanese pavilion in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. It was also shown at the Chicago World’s Fair. It remained a garden plant until the Dust Bowl era (1930s\u20131940s), when the vine was marketed as a way for farmers to stop soil erosion. The new Soil Conservation Service grew seventy million kudzu seedlings and paid $8 an acre (equivalent to $180 in 2024) to anyone who would sow the vine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Destroying the full underground system, which can be extremely large and deep, is not necessary for successful long-term control of kudzu. Killing or removing the kudzu root crown and all rooting runners is sufficient. The root crown is a fibrous knob of tissue that sits on top of the roots. Crowns form from multiple vine nodes that root to the ground, and range from pea- to basketball-sized. These crowns and attached tuberous roots can weigh 400 or 500 pounds<\/strong> (180 to 225 kilograms) and extend up to twenty feet (six meters) into the ground.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Several of our Elders showing their prize kudzu crown roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Helium .vs. Kudzu<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Five years ago, while experimenting for his sixth-grade science fair project in his hometown of Valdosta, Jacob [Schindler] discovered the inert gas [helium] was somehow poison to the vine\u2014and, in the process, may have stumbled upon a way to rid the South of one of the most hated agricultural scourges since the boll weevil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In later years, Julie [Jacob’s mother] would become very supportive of Jacob\u2019s science endeavors, but at first, she was skeptical. \u201cJacob, are you friggin\u2019 insane?\u201d she asked. \u201cAnd how, pray tell, are you going to reclaim Mars?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to plant kudzu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d Julie said. \u201cWhat\u2019s kudzu?\u201d
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By 2005, though\u2014when Jacob first visited kudzu stands around Valdosta, potting small samples of the plants in sealable containers\u2014the vine had been out of control around the South for decades. Using buried IV tubes, he experimented with gassing the roots with nitrous oxide, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and helium. All the plants eventually died, but the one fumigated with helium died almost immediately, after only one treatment.<\/p>\nAtlanta Magazine<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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A Lowndes High School student has received more national attention for his work to eradicate the Southern bane of kudzu.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The son of Eric and Dr. Julie Schindler, Jacob\u2019s work began several years ago as a sixth-grade science project. Jacob became interested in the idea of agriculturally reclaiming the Earth\u2019s deserts and establishing plant-life on Mars. Given its durability, he believed kudzu might be the plant for the job. Kudzu is a plant indigenous to Japan. In the mid 20th century, kudzu was promoted to farmers throughout the American South as a measure to prevent soil erosion. Kudzu was planted throughout the South, but the region\u2019s heat, humidity, rainfall and mild winters created conditions for kudzu to grow out of control.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Jacob received a patent for his helium\/kudzu technique:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patent US8904703B2<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kudzu Culture Speaks for Us All<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kudzu Culture<\/strong> (https:\/\/kudzuculture.net\/<\/a>) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to “connects people with kudzu to grow a regenerative kudzu economy in the Southeastern United States.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spring is Ringing!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whewee, it\u2019s been challenging to stay optimistic and motivated amidst witnessing ecological collapse due to Anthropocentrism and the further unmasking of the technofascist state in the US\u2026 Alas, here we are! And we are still little animals in our habitats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These days it feels as though simple actions such as growing our own food, removing invasive species to foster growth of resilient native species, wild foraging for food, material and medicine, and tending to our immediate surroundings (including human and non-human species) can be radical acts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\nKudzu Culture<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Kudzu Culture<\/strong> was also featured in Gravy<\/em>, the journal and podcast of the Southern Food Alliance<\/strong> (https:\/\/www.southernfoodways.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Primordial fears are top of mind as I scale a steep, unmarked drive in rural western North Carolina. Dead leaves crunch underfoot as I realize I\u2019ve steeled myself to meet a forest of green monsters, lithe and writhing with cottonmouths, a vision of kudzu in late summer. But now, in mid-December, all that surrounds me are dormant vines braided into a loose net over the hillside.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By the time Lauren Bacchus, the executive director of a local nonprofit called Kudzu Culture, joins me, I am no longer nervous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know,\u201d I say, gesturing wildly, \u201cthis is\u2026\u201d She finishes my thought before I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot scary?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I say. \u201cNot scary at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacchus\u2014or LB, as she prefers to be called\u2014has had this conversation many times before. A thirty-four-year-old North Carolina native, she\u2019s studied the attributes of this objectively useful plant. She begins to rattle them off for me. Erosion control, of course: the reason the Civilian Conservation Corps aggressively planted kudzu throughout the South in the 1930s. The roots have nitrogen-fixing qualities that replenish overused soil. Fibers from the spindly vines can be cured into hay, fed to cattle, or woven into textiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LB displays a fabric piece that was made with kudzu vines inside her home.\rMaddy Alewine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kudzu Culture began in 2011 as a loosely organized group of neighbors and friends with the mission, as they playfully put it, of \u201ceating the vine that ate the South.\u201d Initially led by Zev Friedman and Justin Holt, two western North Carolina-based permaculture educators, the pair were drawn together by their shared interest in designing ecologically diverse and resilient communities. Friedman and Holt would host biannual, three-day events called Kudzu Camps, where they invited community members to learn the intricacies of processing the different parts of the plant.<\/p>\nSouthern Foodways<\/a> by Katie Carter King \/ Photos by Maddy Alewine<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Elder G Nets It Out for Us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

WLBOTT:<\/strong>
G, let’s say there was an effort to provide employment by manually cutting down kudzu with machetes. How long would it take one person to clear one acre of kudzu?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elder G:<\/strong>
Short answer: it varies wildly. Here\u2019s a practical range for one person with a machete<\/strong> clearing 1 acre (43,560 sq ft)<\/strong>, assuming no herbicides or machines and that you\u2019re just cutting and piling vines (not hauling them off-site).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How long it takes (by infestation level)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n