The challenge of Kudzu

[JWR]

I’ve dealt with Russian Olive, Honeysuckle and Multi Flora Rose at my place. They can be a real pain but Kudzu seems worse. Luckily I’ve only observed it and it hasn’t made its way here yet.

You guys do not have autumn olive out there ? Is that the same as Russian Olive?

 

[jyoutz]

You guys do not have autumn olive out there ? Is that the same as Russian Olive?

They’re different species but same genus. Autumn olive is Elaeagnus umbellata. Russian olive is Elaeagnus angustifolia. Russian olive has dusty silver leaves and the olives are green silver in color. The tree has thorns. I haven’t seen autumn olive in the west.

 

[JWR]

They’re different species but same genus. Autumn olive is Elaeagnus umbellata. Russian olive is Elaeagnus angustifolia. Russian olive has dusty silver leaves and the olives are green silver in color. The tree has thorns. I haven’t seen autumn olive in the west.

Great info. Thanks !

 

[3Ts]

There is Kudzu in Tahiti also. It's a real problem because herbicides don't work because there is so much rainfall, the herbicide is washed off before it can be absorbed. They tried goats and the goats disappeared into the mountains. The mountains are steep enough that to eliminate it by hand requires mountain climbing gear. I have seen a palm tree that took 20 years to grow, covered by kudzu in one year. Good intentions without the study result in ecological disasters.

 

[2manyrocks]

I used a rear mount boom to spray the areas where I saw kudzu leaves two weeks ago with a pretty strong mix of glyphosate and Crossbow at a 3:1 ratio using surfactant.

The area was browned out after two weeks.

Since kudzu vine grows close to the ground to spread itself, I wanted to see what it really looked like under the dead vegetation. I set the scarifiers on my landscape box to just dig into the ground and pulled off as much vegetation as I could while also trying to rip up the kudzu vine.

I found several clusters of kudzu vine, all of which still appear capable of regrowing. Dug part of one cluster with a pickaxe.

Rotary cutters don't cut close enough to actually cut these vines that lay so close to the ground leaving them to spread. Some of this kudzu is strong enough that I suspect it could break the tines on a landscape rake. That's why I used the landscape box instead.

This may be why grazing with goats may actually be more effective because they can get at the vines.

 

[Smokeydog]

The lady I bought the farm from, bought it in 1944. Over grazed, over cut eroding red clay steep hillside. With county conservation assistance planted thousand pine trees and multiflora rose and kudzu on the steeper parts. Could sorta controlled with cattle, hand clearing and bush hogging. Most of the pine trees are gone leaving a hardwood mix. Without cows a few years the the kudzu grew unchecked. Surrounded kudzu with a 15 acre fence for goats. Cut vines in trees some 8” thick. Sprayed 2-4D to kill trying to go across fences. Took 8 years to kill the kudzu out. Keep it clear for another 15 years. No stock now for 12 years. See a small patch of kudzu starting at tree line!?$!

Russian olives and privet explosion the latest struggle. Danuser Intimdator has helped immensely.

Around here housing and development are biggest threat to farming and will eventually be lost to progress.

 

[fishdrivel]

After seeing some kudzu vines in this area while bush hogging last summer, I cleared out the small trees and brush over the winter. Checking on my progress today, I was curious about how much of the kudzu had returned over the last 3-6 months.

This one vine is 20 feet plus long measured from where it comes out of the ground to the end as stretched across my tractor.

I cut this area with the rotary cutter about 4-6 weeks ago. The cutter didn't even touch the vine because the vine grows a couple inches off the ground beneath where the cutter reaches.

Kudzu can put down roots off the runners. The roots go several feet into the ground.

Other than using goats to graze kudzu to death, the only other practical method of control I've found is to spray it...over and over.

USDA ARS Online Magazine Vol. 64, No. 7

ARS scientists at the Biological Control of Pests Research Unit in Stoneville, MS are looking for quicker, more effective management techniques to control kudzu, which typically takes about 10 years to eradicate.

agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov

 

[2manyrocks]

No stock now for 12 years. See a small patch of kudzu starting at tree line!?$!

Around here housing and development are biggest threat to farming and will eventually be lost to progress.

USDA ARS Online Magazine Vol. 64, No. 7

ARS scientists at the Biological Control of Pests Research Unit in Stoneville, MS are looking for quicker, more effective management techniques to control kudzu, which typically takes about 10 years to eradicate.

agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov

I contacted the author of that study. He recommended aminopyralid (Milestone, Chaparral, and OpenSight).

Kudzu seems more entrenched and harder to get rid of when it gets to the tree line. My little experiment in post 35 above is still a bit of a shock to see the extent of the vine system in an open field once the other vegetation was removed.

While I have the vines exposed, I'm thinking about the best method to dig out the tubers that appear to be in the top 6-10 inches of soil. I'm wondering if it would be more effective to kill these tubers than to continue spraying. So why not a little experiment to see?

I could cut and remove the vine and then dig with a PHD. My concern is the PHD getting bound up in the root system and/or shredding the tuber and it re-establishing itself. I could try a root ripper on the 3pt hitch, but I'd have to buy or fabricate one. Have even considered using a lawn edger, but I'm not sure it would dig deep enough.

I keep looking at my pile of scrap steel thinking something will come to me....

 

[lman]

Around here we cut honeysuckle and other brush and immediately brush on glyphosate to the cut area. It seems like the glyphosate is sucked down to the roots and kills it. I don't have to fight Kudzu. But I worked on some honeysuckle climbing my pine trees last weekend.

 

[2manyrocks]

The heat index has been over 100 here for a few weeks now, but with a slight break in temps I did some more digging today to better understand this kudzu.

One of the biggest challenges is how well kudzu camouflages itself to blend in with what's around it. The brown vine blends in with bare dirt. The green vine blends in with grass and other green vegetation. I had literally finished digging out one tuber when I happened to notice another one hiding right beside it.



Another challenge is that it is easy to dismiss a kudzu root crown as insignificant by looking at the surface, but the actual tuber may be nearly a foot long and/or well connected to an extensive root system in the soil.




Todays' digging in a relatively small area turned up several tubers--all of which were still living despite having been sprayed a few weeks ago. My advice to anyone dealing with kudzu is not to assume it has been killed just because the vines on the surface are browned out after spraying them.



My current thoughts are to go back over the entire area with a landscape rake to see what other vines can be found and then continue digging them out with the backhoe. Our ground is pretty hard this time of year. The backhoe seems to be my best option to dig these things out of the field hoping that removing these tubers will actually kill the kudzu.