> the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu occupies, to some degree, about 227,000 acres of forestland
I quickly verified this statistic. But I know that "forestland" is a specific category of land. What about non-forestland? How many acres of kudzu are there on land that is not considered forestland?
> experts estimate that kudzu covers another 500,000 acres in the South’s cities and suburbs
I found this statistic about 500,000 acres quoted in several places, but didn't find which experts came up with that number. Still, it was very quick to find double the acreage in one specific type of non-forestland.
That doesn't even begin to touch non-forestland countryside (i.e. non-city, non-suburb)
The US Forest Service estimates that kudzu adds 2,500 acres each year. US Department of Agriculture estimates that it spreads by 150,000 acres per year. I don't think this is a discrepancy, just that each agency is looking at specific land types and uses.
It seems like this article is seriously cherry picking data to make it seem like kudzu is less of an issue.
That being said, goats will dig down and eat the hell out of the stuff.
Roundup does basically nothing. The leaves are thick and waxy and so don't absorb herbicide effectively. Supposedly, applying a more concentrated formula on a weekly basis for a month can work, but I don't like the idea of spraying that much glyphosate.
It works. It may take several applications to do so, but it works.
Not sure if that is readily available in all regions, though.
But isn't this exactly what the article is arguing?
> 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.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person that's read a given article... Though I guess I actually read it last time it was posted.
Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35934578 - May 2023 (47 comments)
Kudzu, the vine that never truly ate the South (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23668829 - June 2020 (40 comments)
The Secret Life of Kudzu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20593633 - Aug 2019 (9 comments)
The Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10113294 - Aug 2015 (18 comments)
I now live in New York, and it's starting to show up here.
Fun times ahead...
If I'm not mistaken, you can't sell a house, in the UK, if there's knotweed on the property.
The trick with Kudzu is that, unlike ligustrum sinense, it invades in a much more literal sense, covering both other plants and the ground itself as far as it can. It 'universally' impedes the growth of other plants, and arguably makes terrain less traversal (if only because it covers what's underneath).
At some time, in the last 30 years, it exploded.
Large swaths of the south simply don't have winter. But how cold does it get and how far from wintery areas is it? Is trucking a bunch of kudzu an option?
The most viable farm based approach would be "reverse coal mine": make charcoal from the biomass by reduced-oxygen combustion, then put it all in the big pit you made when you dug up all that coal.
However, there's no economic model for any of this, so carbon capture is never going to go beyond pilot schemes.
edit - To clarify if a big diesel truck puts X CO2 into the air to move Y tons of CO2 some distance then clearly if X is greater than Y it just doesn't make sense. But, if X is 10% of Y for 200 miles then moving biomass 200 miles might make sense.
Also the transport can be shrunk if the transport is electric. A diesel truck might dump less CO2 into the air than even a coal plant is dumping a ton of CO2 it might be dumping less (or more) per watt which might
I bet if you had lab controlled environments you could find some optimal level of CO2 for it to grow in if you could guarantee no pests or competitors. But those detractors will change with CO2 levels too. Also, beneficial things for the plant in question will change too, like other plants that fix soil nutrients and polinators. It is simply too complex of a question to truly know and tiny changes in a superficially positive direction could have wildly unexpected negative impacts from an unmodeled directions.
So... I don't know and I doubt anyone does unless they have studied the whole ecosystem for a long time.
But you're right in the sense that this is utterly unprecedented in our history, so we don't rightfully know how the ecosystem will react as a whole.
There are real pros and cons to all of these technologies, but the space of real climate discussion is so polluted by people lying about CO2 that it prudent to preempt any known conspiracy theories.
I would argue that is controlled conditions as I called out earlier. In the context the implication is wild plants. Yeah, absolutely some plants grow better in high CO2 environments but who has studied this and what were their results?
Yeah, agreed.