Looking for kudzu in North Texas

You dont want it, i promise.
We are covered up here in the south. Itll take down full grown trees
I seriously fear ever having to go into a kudzu forest as you may never come out.

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I always wondered why somebody didn't do something, then I realized I am somebody

It is rampant in NYS. Please do not haul into your area. It isn't worth the risks to other plant life & critters. It may be illegal to knowingly transplant into your state.

When I moved to KY in the sixties kudzu had been there forever already. Lifestock eats it, goats love it, I do not know about horses. Pigs eat the roots. I wanted toplant some on the back of the house and let it grow all over the house. Everybody thought I was nuts. I understand it is grown in Japan for it's starchy root, which is good for baby food and for diabetics. I guess it could be beneficial. Plant it, let the cows eat it, then dig the roots when the leaves are gone. I wish we had some. our goats have eaten all our wild bushes down to the nubb, you can look through the woods and they need some forage. We reduced the number of goats we have since they have eaten everything, and this here was wild when we started. I know my girls would make short shrift of a patch of kudzu. Goat feed, pig feed, people feed. Good place to hide in maybe. It does not scratch does it?

Really? Where?

If you know how to identify it, that will be your job for the Spring Fling: Find that kudzu!

Not that I want yet another invasive on the farm, but that stuff is supposed to be incredible goat feed. If it's here, may as well make the best of it.

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Wiki has a map of where it's crawling all over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celastrus_orbiculatus



here's a map from another site:

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That's not kudzo!
Northern Quebec is in the arctic, beluga whales and polar bears roam WAY south of that map. Kudzo will not take over where OP proposes to grow it. She probably won't be able to grow enough in the short season.

Look, I just posted what I found. I didn't post pics, so how do you know whether or not it's kudzu? LOL!

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This article says that kudzu has been found in Marblehead, MA and Canada.

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/climate...ies/kudzu.html

I don't know why kudzu gets such a bad rap? Sure it's invasive, but you can survive off it! It's edible, makes excellent rope, baskets, animal feed, and the fibers can be spun like cloth!
With a little ingenuity it can provide food, shelter, clothing and water!
I hope none of us ever have to live that way, but if we do I sincerely hope we all have a lovely patch of kudzu growing nearby.

I'm in SC where we have plenty of kudzu. I'm not impressed with it for hay and grazing. I have baled hay on someone's land where there was some kudzu. The leaves dry and crumble to dust before the vine is dry. It will grow up and get bushy by the middle of June, then grow again for a fall cutting just before frost.(it does not like cold weather) The amount of hay produced is not too great. For comparison, coastal bermuda gets 3-5 cuttings a year, with 5 being exceptional.

Cows and goat love to graze it. If it grows up by early summer and livestock turned on it at any decent stocking rate, they will graze it down in a couple of weeks. Then if the stock is removed, it will grow back for another short round of grazing in the late fall. Nope, not impressed, don't want any.

I have seen an abandoned house covered with the stuff.

COWS

I am a native Texan and I don't think I've ever seen it here. DH had to point out all the kudzu covered trees in North Carolina while we were visiting last summer. I've never seen anything like that. You couldn't see the trees, just a tree shaped wall of kudzu covering all the trees.

All the Texas natives websites I frequent have phone numbers they urge you to call to report for removal if you do find kudzu. I am guessing it's a state funded organization that does the removal or something of that ilk.

In the west both kudzu and fire ants have already crossed the Canadian border and have progressed a couple of hundred miles into Canada and the coastal islands and are spreading further north. There is a big war on against Japanese knotweed on the coast as well. In my province it is illegal to grow kudzu and knotweed.

???
I heard it grows a foot a day. How come it is so slow in your area?

Fire ants?!
Y'all have my condolences.
We battle them every year

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I always wondered why somebody didn't do something, then I realized I am somebody

The second map is where it is considered a invasive plaint and it is illegal to plaint it.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

Re Tabitha "I hear it grows a foor a day..." It may well be growing a foot a day in ideal conditions, but it dosen't thicken up enough to yield much hay over that foot. After cutting or grazing it takes a while for it to get started good again.

COWS