Friday, May 15, 2004

Brown prepares to wage war on PTC’s latest threat: Kudzu By J. FRANK LYNCH jflynch@theCitizenNews.com Kudzu just doesn’t belong in Peachtree City. The battleground is being set to eliminate the ravenous Southern vine from the planned community, where anything that’s not neat and orderly is sometimes viewed as not welcome. Kudzu isn’t part of the city’s master plan, suggested Mayor Steve Brown. “The war is on,” he declared recently. “This was one of the topics that I covered in my State of the City Address.” According to Brown, kudzu, introduced throughout the South innocently enough more than 100 years ago to help control soil erosion, threatens city trees in several key locations. Among them is Brown’s neighborhood, Planterra Ridge, where kudzu borders an adjoining industrial area, he said. More kudzu can be found within the city lining the Planterra Ridge golf course, along nearby TDK Boulevard, along the cart path system in sections of Glenloch and Braelinn, along Robinson Road near Ga. Highway 54 and Shakerag Hill, and near the Kedron Aquatics Center and Fieldhouse, Brown said. “We can truly say that we are a city that values our tree canopy and going after the kudzu will help,” said Brown, pointing out that kudzu is on the federal noxious weed list. But it’s not considered an “invasive” weed, said Sheldon Hammond of the Fayette County Extension Service, meaning that while it’s annoying, kudzu isn’t really a threat and can be controlled. “Where it’s planted, it becomes a nuisance but it’s not carried from place to place by wind or animals,” said Hammond. In fact, for all its reputation, kudzu isn’t easily spread at all, Hammond said. “It is fast growing and it grows quickly over large areas, but it doesn’t spread readily from place to place,” said Hammond, suggesting that most large patches of kudzu around Fayette County were likely planted by somebody for a reason, or else remain as offspring of kudzu vines that were intended for good originally. “If you’ve got it on your lot, it can be a huge problem,” said Hammond of kudzu complaints. “If you don’t have it on your lot, it really isn’t a concern.” The Fayette County Extension office, a service of the University System of Georgia, gets about 10 or 15 calls annually about kudzu, said Hammond. In a recent memo to Brown, City Manager Bernard McMullen said the city was doing all it could do at present to rid Peachtree City of the scourge. “The only way feasible to do more is more staffing or other personnel resources,” McMullen wrote to Brown, adding that hiring any outside firms to come in and attack the kudzu would require a state license to use the proper herbicides. According to Harvey Garcia, a landscape supervisor with the city who has been destroying kudzu for years, the process of killing kudzu starts with applying a non-selective herbicide chemical dye like Rodeo, Prosecutor, or Round-Up. “It usually takes three to five days to get into the root system,” continued Linda Youngblood, a facilities maintenance supervisor in a note to acting public services director Randy Gaddo. “The entire process should start in the winter,” Youngblood advised. “In the spring time, when it starts coming back from dormancy, is the best time to apply the non-selective herbicide.” Peachtree City is taking the right approach, Hammond said, citing three ways to get rid of kudzu: •ÊMow, chop or cut the vines away until you “basically wear the plant out”; • Use a herbicide that is especially effective on kudzu (some do nothing, while at least one brand actually boosts the kudzu’s growth, according to researchers); •ÊBuy a herd of goats and place them in the kudzu patch, since the animals are particularly fond of feeding off kudzu’s sweet vines and leaves. “There are people who clear entire lots of kudzu with goats,” said Hammond, who did offer one warning: “Be prepared to move the goats, because they’ll eat everything in sight eventually, and kill the kudzu.” Hammond also advised kudzu warriors to be patient. “It’s not going to go away in one season,” he said. “But it is controllable. And if you do get rid of a patch, chances of it coming back are going to be really low because like I said, it doesn’t easily spread.” BACKGROUND BOX It took a lot of hard work to spread kudzu so widely around the South, says Max Shores, a filmmaker and web publisher who works for the University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio. His award-winning documentary about the menace entitled “The Amazing Story of Kudzu” includes this abbreviated history: Today, kudzu covers 7 million acres across the deep South but it was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, staged to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. The Japanese government constructed a garden filled with plants from their country. The large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms of kudzu captured the imagination of American gardeners who used the plant for ornamental purposes. Florida nursery operators Charles and Lillie Pleas discovered that animals would eat the plant and promoted its use for forage in the 1920s. Their Glen Arden Nursery in Chipley, Fla., sold kudzu plants through the mail. A historical marker there proudly proclaims “Kudzu Developed Here.” During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Soil Conservation Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Hundreds of young men were given work planting kudzu through the Civilian Conservation Corps. Farmers were paid as much as eight dollars an acre as incentive to plant fields of the vines in the 1940s, Shores reports. Kudzu’s most vocal advocate was Channing Cope of Covington who promoted use of the vine to control erosion. Cope wrote about kudzu in articles for the Atlanta Journal and talked about its virtues frequently on his daily WSB-AM radio program broadcast from his front porch. During the 1940s, he traveled across the Southeast starting Kudzu Clubs to honor what he called “the miracle vine.” Cope was very disappointed when the U.S. government stopped advocating the use of kudzu in 1953, Shores writes. Current research may lead to new medicines made from kudzu, but for now only hamsters and mice can benefit from these drugs. Research with laboratory animals at Harvard Medical School has revealed that a drug extracted from kudzu root may help in the treatment of alcoholism. The drug is based on a 2,000 year old Chinese herbal medicine. Several years of testing may be required before the drug can be made available for human consumption. —ÊMax Shores, from the website www.alabamatv.org/kudzu/

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