Kudzu History: The Vine That Ate The South

A history of Kudzu: the nonnative, invasive "vine that ate the south." Learn about the Kudzu plant's origins and rapid spread.

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[Kevin-jbpv]

Anyone who has never seen the _vast_ tracts of land that Kudzu has taken over can't really understand how bad it is. It's absolutely freaking _alien_ to stand in the middle of a field that has just been totally swallowed whole by this stuff. It eats _everything._ Trees, brush, cars, houses, barns, fences, rocks, _everything._ It's just unreal.

[PhoenixAurelius-]

If you can't beat it, EAT it! Kudzu was a survival food during the depression in the south. Do you like collards and potatoes, with a side of asparagus? Try the boiled leaves, the roasted roots, and the young vine tips, and then end the meal with kudzu flower jelly. The vines make incredibly strong baskets.

When the inevitable crop losses and food shortages come in the next few years, you'll be glad for kudzu's company.

[centuryfiles]

The most unrealistic thing in The Walking Dead is that kudzu hasn't completely taken over!

[cloudstrifeification]

One thing that I will note is these vines are edible by humans as well! The stems are not but the leaves, roots, and flowers can be eaten. You can make baskets of of the stems. We should be utilizing this area of attack more. Kudzu is actually in the legume family.

[darkiee]

Once the goat are done, send in the pigs to do the rest. They'll turn the soil and eat the roots.

[ringojyukuTV]

if I live in America, I would use the leaves as livestock feed and start a business to produce Kudzu starch from the roots and sell it to Japanese restaurants.
Kudzu starch is an ingredient in Japanese sweets.😋

[evie]

according to my dad, my great grandfather was one of the people who decided they pay people to plant it... on behalf of my family, i am sorry.

[deshawnb.j.]

This is frightening. A foot a day?! You can literally watch this plant grow.

[jonallie]

Here's an idea for Kudzu. Use prison inmates - start a goat farm at the prison then inmates take the goats to eat the Kudzu. After goats eat up an area then other inmates have to dig up all of the roots and make herbs, starch, breading, kudzu potatoes etc. And others can pick and package the leaves and package for salad type food. Of course, make sure they don't pick poison ivy. Also, prepare the vines for making baskets and/or rope then send to a factory for that purpose and train the inmates to make everything out of this Kudzu then when they get out of prison they have a free resource for making money - even offer company contracts for those whom did a good job upon their release from prison.

[Iamwolf]

People are now turning to goats to help control Kudzu, and it's allegedly working very well.

[Techncian]

“Violetta says I creep like the kudzu vines that are slowly but surely strangling our Dixie” - Gilbert Fontaine de la Tour D'haute Rive. King of the hill.

[Theunihornable]

Was driving through georgia and stopped in Dalton. Saw the very familiar vine and was shocked to see how it really can eat up all the trees! Gladly florida doesn't have these vines (yet) but we do got another vine of similar invasiveness which be the air potato. This vine will drop little potato looking tubers on every leaf segment that will grow into another plant but thankfully it can be easily defeated by cutting the base of the plant since it doesn't produce runners.

[GrumpyTinashe]

So Japan didn't lose ww2 after all 🤣😂😁

[carmellapeterson]

Yes goats! Chickens, humans and many other livestock creatures can eat it. I would've LOVED to hear more about this as a food source. Thank you for making this video :)

[bubbamoosecat]

My home is in Michigan. Too cold for it here. But I am amazed by this every time I travel down south.

[Lycansrule]

In somalia, our goats are dying of starvation and luck of vegetation . We realy could use that plant . We have wide open areas and All we need is a fast growing plant like the KUDZO . or you guys can just ship our hungry goats to america and let them eat it all up then bring them back to somalia again . Its a win win deal, you save your forests and we get a well nourished goat who can survive the drought season

[hossesarse]

Kudzu is a predator of forests. I took a motorcycle tour on the Blue Ridge Parkway once and passed scenes that looked like an oak tree gazelle fleeing a green kudzu lion:
And there were miles of dead forest that had already been devoured. Dead oak trunks holding kudzu up to the sun. Thanks Japan.

[uscustoms]

227K acres covered in Mississippi alone. Bring on the goats!

[wvbygraceofgod]

We’ve got a lot of kudzu in southern WV. I remember, when I was young, kudzu made a formation out of some trees and it ended up resembling Jesus Christ. It was called the Jesus Tree and it was huge. People would come from miles around at sunset to look at the Jesus Tree because sunset was when you could see it best. It was even in the front page of the local paper, (you got to think this is a small mining town in the early 80s) and my folks still have the clipping somewhere. I remember people thinking it was some kind of miracle and churches would have services up there and schools would bring buses full of kids to see it. Life seemed so much simpler back then. Great video by the way.

[anthonyking]

Met someone couple weeks ago, making jam, and other edibles from kudzu