I'm moving to the south (probably closer to mason dixon line) but I heard kudzu vines are insane there. Is it pretty socially acceptable to tear it up wherever you go? I understand its a losing battle I just hate that it ruins everything and even if its hopeless I see myself fricking with it everytime I'm around it in nature
>socially acceptable
Anyone who defends kudzu should be tied up and left out for the vines to consume. All of the south is getting swallowed up because somebody wanted "muh exotic asian yard decor".
It's actually because of capitalist Yankee oil barons building roads every fricking where and American greed for cars and 100,000,000 automobiles that utterly annihilated the American ruminant population.
I dream of a world where cars are banned and every road is traveled by goat-drawn wagons fueled by roadside kudzu.
Take your meds.
govt program to combat soil erosion
a frickin moronic govt program by some frickin moronic govt bureaucrat thought it would be a good idea to bring shitass kudzu to prevent soil erosion in the south
same story with some dumb frickin moron govt butthole who brought over bradford frickin pear trees that smell like fricking jizz every spring
soil erosion happened because of clearcut logging
It’s the old lady who swallowed the fly. Pretty much too late to do anything about it now, but we are in a weird niche where we have the best technology and transportation to spend time outside and there’s still an outside left to enjoy at all
yes and
frickin moron govt solution is trash and we're still with it a century later
Feel bad about being moronic, carpet bagger.
Yankees are basically kudzu in human form. Please stay in your own shithole. Fricking A yall just never stop coming. We are tired of yall.
im from oregon, I spend a lot of time in nature and im pretty moderate, dont intend to do anything against the status quo where I go unless black liberals have shit on everything
>I'm one of the good ones I swear
>[Identity politics]
No you're not.
>im pretty moderate, dont intend to do anything against the status quo where I go unless black liberals have shit on everything
Wish we could take that chance, anon. Back against the kudzu vines.
They do make good target practice.
Kudzu is harmless, beautiful and an easy food source. No actual southerner is bothered by this innocent plant
Only cause we're used to it. Bring it up in conversation and I'll tell you yea, it's bad and then move on. What are we supposed to do about it?
It's edible.
A couple of goats will KO the kudzu.
I live in AL. Kudzu is killable, it's just extremely hard.
Because it's pretty much a losing battle, Look on a bright-ish side. A lot of the plant is edible. It's infinite food if it's near you, which 90% chance it will be if you don't live in the metro or solidly suburban areas. It makes for pretty good salad greens.
Do what any basketweaving forum-user is supposed to...
make baskets with it
Kudzu being considered a scourge is more of a joke than anything. There were places in Mississippi where you could ride your horses through the woods. Then massive deforestation by greedy people who mostly did not live here took care of that. The forests grew back, replaced mostly by denser and faster growing pine trees, And of course came the land erosion. This is where the kudzu came in. It’s actually very pretty along some areas of the Mississippi river that would likely be slopes of red clay if not for the kudzu. Like others have pointed out it is edible, if one were so inclined. If you want something like wild muscadine vines the kudzu is a pain and will choke it out. But it really isn’t a problem. Every now and then you’ll see an abandoned property where the kudzu has enveloped a dilapidated barn or something, reclaiming the land, which looks pretty cool. The thing I see most southerners complain about encroaching on their property is bamboo, or perhaps waterlilies.
>it really isn't a problem
Leafy fast-growing hands typed this
I live in the deep south. Kudzu used to be a problem in sort of recently cleared waste areas near towns and things. About 10 years ago it started to recede though. I think they've found things to spray. These days I barely see it though. Japanese climbing fern is a bigger problem.
I spend alot of time in the woods and swamps and am sort of obsessed with plants I guess. I never saw Kudzu
in the woods. It was always more of a waste area type thing. Now climbing fern I do come across in the deepest of woods.
Anyways, I found a bunch of mayhaws this morning. They are getting pretty close.
Bamboo can get out of hand fast but always seems to stay in a colony and doesn't spread long distances. Like I said climbing fern is the worst. Popcorn tree is bad too. So is Chinaberry. I have a clump of bamboo on one of the creeks and actually don't mind it too much. I generally hate any nonnatibe but it mostly stays put and it's nice to use it for poles and stuff.
In the south (and this is an over simplification) you generally have two types of general landscapes and then subvarieties of those two. You have upland and bottomland. The bottomland is mostly untouched because you can't plant pines on it. Pic rel is an untouched bottomland. Now the upland on the other hand is typically Longleaf Pine savannah. Longleaf Pines with red oaks, maybe post oak, blackjack oak, Scarlet Oak etc. with wiregrass underneath and all sorts of vaccinium and hawthorn shrubs plus things like wild plum and crabapple. Maybe some eastern red cedar. This is of course an over simplification. There are thousands of upland species. Anyways- I don't think planted pines cause erosion. Wiregrass and most of the more common upland plants WILL grow under planted pines. The problem is no one plants longleaf pine because it isnt profitable and the longleaf pine is sort of a foundational species for upland forests for some reason. Idk I never really figured out why- it changes the soil I think over time. But yeah I hate planted pines. A natural upland forest is very interesting. One of the most surreal things is being in a bottomland that backs up to an upland and going from one to the other. It's like you walked 50 yards and got transported to another continent.
Here's the natural longleaf upland.
almost all land was logged completely at one point
A true bottomland literally can't be logged. Anyways, I can be certain the two I posted have not been logged since approximately 1850 for certain and very likely not before either.
>literally can't
lolwutpear.jpeg2000
>since approximately 1850
ok but they did at one point
the odds of leaving virgin trees in eastern us terrain is like .00001%
Look prior to about 1800 this part of the country was more or less a complete backwater borderline frontier. And since 1850 I know for a fact that these woods have not been logged.
Oak bottom lands here filled with 300+ year old live oaks tell the story really. Anyways a true bottomland is basically a swamp. You can't log it not even now with modern equipment kek much less with a wagon and mule. Also once logged they can't be replanted in pines etc. because it is too wet so there is really no reason to do it.
In this part of the country if you clearcut hardwoods and don't plant pines over them there is no commercial value in it. I mean out west 90% of tree growth are the same six commercially logged conifer species so you mow it down and it just grows back. Here if you clear a bottomland it's going to take 100s of years to come back. You are going to have a couple successive waves of pioneers (things like sweet gum and persimmon) and then eventually slow growing hardwoods that might be composed of a couple hundred different tree species (many of which are not really commercially valuable) will eventually shade it out and dominate. There literally isn't enough tome since settlement for lot of these bottomlands to exist kek.
>there is really no reason to do it
sell wood, make money
Kek what part of "swamp" don't you understand m8? You can't just get a machine in there and out with tons of trees. It's up to your waist in some places. Sinkholes 20 ft deep here and there.
If I asked a consultant about cutting timber in these swamps they would literally tell me they can't do it. And even if they could they would ask me "why would you want to do that?" Because it would probably cost more to log than the hardwoods would bring per ton. And with places that you can replant with slash pine, you can recut in maybe 30 years. With hardwoods that you can't plant you're looking at maybe like 100-200 years it makes no sense. Meanwhile you could just rent them to some boomer for 6k a year to go duck hunt a half dozen times kek.
you are able to photograph these untouchable trees, but somehow loggers couldn't sell them?
They are easily "touchable" but getting a team of mules and wagon to them and hauling literal tons of lumber through a swamp is another thing altogether. A rock on the ground could understand this, are you just being obtuse?
Anyways to your point some of these areas are actually not easy to get to even just on foot.
Kek do you even understand what a wetland is? This isn't a lake or river we are talking about.