Posted on 08/02/2004 7:38:50 PM PDT by BluegrassScholar
Kudzu, the unruly vine that sprawls across seven million acres in the South and Atlantic Coast, is now in season.
Popularly known as the "vine that ate the South," kudzu's grip on regional culture is tenacious as the vine. Throughout the Southeast, radio stations, festivals, streets, and even a comic strip bear its name.
Nevertheless, kudzu remains the bane of many gardeners and environmentalists. As kudzu spreads over plants and trees, the thick leaves block the sunlight, killing what lies beneath.
Kudzu the destroyer is immortalized in James Dickey's ode to the "green, mindless, unkillable ghosts." In the poem, cows, hogs, and people stumble into kudzu jungles, only to be devoured by the mass or to be struck by snakes hidden within.
Some Southerners, however, want to clear kudzu's bad name by seeking out commercial and medicinal uses for the week.
If their work catches on, kudzu may be the South's most renewable resource, they say.
Most recently, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have isolated several compounds in the kudzu root that could be useful in lowering blood pressure, as well as serve as a rich source for estrogen in hormone replacement therapy.
Like its sister the soybean plant, kudzu is rich in isoflavones. Assistant Research Professor Jeevan Prasain found kudzu root to have an even more abundant supply of nutritional compounds. One of these, puerarine, not found in the soybean, can lower blood sugar, Prasain said.
Prasain and his colleagues published his research in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in 2003. Earlier this year, Prasain presented more current findings to the Purdue University-UAB Botanicals Center, one of seven such centers sponsored by the federal government.
Chinese medicine has employed the root as an anti-diuretic and a hangover-cure for centuries.
"Kudzu is a problem in the South, because it is seen as a useless thing. But now because of the isoflavones that may no longer be the case," Prasain said.
Kudzu also inspired Professor Jeffery Hsieh, director of Georgia Tech's Pulp and Paper Engineering Program.
"(In Georgia), kudzu is basically a nuisance. We wished it could be useful," Hsieh said. So Hsieh and his students plucked kudzu from the roadside to test it as a replacement for wood in papermaking. Though conducted as an informal class experiment, Hsieh published his findings in the Journal of the Technical Association of Pulp, Paper, and Converting Industry.
While kudzu could eventually be used as a replacement for wood, Hsieh its a long way from viability.
"The quality is not there, but it can be improved," Hsieh said.
Non-scientific folks have found creative uses for kudzu, as well.
Henry Edwards, a farmer in North Carolina, cultivates kudzu to sell as feed for goats and cattle. "You can hammer it up, just like alfalfa," Edwards said. Edwards claims he has been using kudzu for his own cattle for over 60 years, but he now ships roots to interested farmers around the country.
Kudzu leaves work as a cheap and effective food source for animals, because the leaves are made up of 20 percent protein, he said.
For the Edwards, kudzu is more than a business. It's also dinner. Edwards says his wife uses the leaves as an ingredient in quiche. "We also like to fry the leaves so they're like potato chips except a whole lot better," Edwards said. "We make jelly, too. You take the blossom and it tastes just like grape jelly."
Artisan Regina Vines of Ball Ground, Ga. financed her daughter's college tuition with baskets woven from kudzu. Vines got the idea from her sister-in-law's "moaning and groaning" over a kudzu infestation in her garden.
The State of Georgia commissions her annually to make baskets for the Southeast Tourism Society's lobbying efforts.
Despite their best efforts, it may take a while before everyone is convinced of kudzu's merits. Many states have ordinances against allowing wild kudzu to encroach upon a neighbor's yard. Earlier this year, Illinois, a state on the farther reaches of kudzu territory, made it a crime to grow the vine at all.
Kudzu was not always held in such disdain, says kudzu historian Juanitta Baldwin.
Originally brought to this country from Japan for the 1876 United States Centennial Exposition, agricultural scientists immediately saw the plant's value as a means of controlling the soil erosion then plaguing the South.
Kudzu clubs sprouted up around the Southeast in order to encourage its spread. The campaign was so successful that the South quickly found itself consumed by kudzu.
By 1970, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared kudzu a weed. Since then, scientists have investigated various pesticides and insects to destroy it.
In Asia, however, kudzu is still prized. The root is ground into a powder used by many as a part of daily nutrition, says Baldwin. The leaves are used for glazing and as a thickener.
In the U.S., kudzu sales are often limited to health shops, like Five Seasons Whole Foods Market in Ocean Springs. There kudzu is sold in the grocery section and the supplement section. Studied by a team of Harvard scientists last year, kudzu is believed to control alcohol cravings and cure hangovers.
Cameron Walker, supplement specialist at Whole Foods, said the products aren't too popular.
"People down here don't know it as anything other than a menacing creature," Walker said.
Nonetheless, the weed does have its enthusiasts. Having written two books on the subject, Baldwin now lectures in high schools around her native Tennessee to help spread the word about kudzu and to encourage students to use it in their science projects.
"We love it and we hate it," she said, "but we should use it."
Kudzu Ping!
So9
One goat could clear that mess up in a week.
That would be great if researchers could find a good use for the stuff; there sure is plenty of it!
That stuff is amazing, I've seen it, good luck, too bad you can't smoke it. That would do the trick. LOL
Someone should start a fashion of smoking it. If it takes off...
Alfalfa got hammered? That little rascal. OTay!
Just the rumor that it gets you high should be enough to get every bit of it pulled up and stolen.
So9
Ah, sweet memories.
Looks like a scene from " ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOS" .
:-)
EWWWW that stuff is nasty! Now I live in the West where we're plagued with Burmuda Grass. I call it the "kudzu of the West." I have bleached it, poured every poison known to man on the roots, I've resorted to vegetable oil. I've dug two feet down as hand sifted the dirt. No matter what I do it's growing up and covering the sides of the house and anything else it touches. If any of you know of a cure, let me know asap!
That car picture reminds me of Jeff Foxworthy's "If you're mowing your lawn and you find a car - you might be a redneck."
It was pretty amazing.
Kudzu ping!
I know someone who shreds it and makes fantastic compost out of it. If nothing else, it is a great producer of organic matter...
Time for our great American genetic engineers to step up to the plate. Cross that stuff with Kona Gold and it would go on the Endangered Species List in 5 years, tops.
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