Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015)

#51

Post by brazzy » Mon, May 15, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

culi wrote: post #50

brazzy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I assumed that it was specialized because it's called "kudzu bug" in the article. Still, the same logic applies: the species encountered a new habitat where its particular niche was probably not filled, enabling explosive growth.

I read up more and it's actually many many non-leguminous plants it attacks too. Seems like basically anything. There are native pests like that for pretty much every plant that grows in large populations so I highly doubt it found a new niche. It's success specifically seems to be due to just how much of a generalist it actually is A more likely, though surely still incomplete, explanation may be due to the fact tha…

That's certainly also a possibility. Could also be a combination of factors.

Re: Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015)

#52

Post by ethbr0 » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:04 AM UTC

hnmullany wrote: post #39

Nicholas_C wrote: post #2

>Still, along Southern roads, the blankets of untouched kudzu create famous spectacles. Bored children traveling rural highways insist their parents wake them when they near the green kudzu monsters stalking the roadside. “If you based it on what you saw on the road, you’d say, dang, this is everywhere,” said Nancy Loewenstein, an invasive plants specialist with Auburn University. This was my experience as a child. W…

Kudzu does well at forest edges, so you tend to see it by roads - it's not successful in the interior where seedlings don't get enough light.

>> 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.

Last time this article came up, I realized how much of my impression of kudzu was visibility bias.

You see a ton of it from roads.

You see very little of it inside forests, where there are not roads.

Re: Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015)

#53

Post by courgette » Tue, May 16, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #44

courgette wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a country freaking out about its borders a handful of centuries after completed the largest land grab in history…

From a country freaking out about it's borders while holding onto the symbol of the Statue of Liberty... > Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

> don’t be evil

Re: Kudzu, the vine that never ate the south (2015)

#54

Post by pfdietz » Wed, May 17, 2023, 12:56 AM UTC

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #32

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a lot of it in Maryland. I moved to New York, about 30 years ago, and stopped seeing it. Until a couple of years ago. A house in our neighborhood had a backyard covered in it. Not sure if it was deliberately planted. I reported it to the DEC, and it seems to be gone, now.

I love the DEC so much. They seem to actually give a shit, and NY's environmental recovery is astounding. A parallel to that is the incredible research and work done by SUNY ESF. They've almost brought back the American Chestnut!

Is that the genetically engineered one? I just planted three of the Chinese Chestnut backcrossess (7 generations, so it's almost entirely American Chestnut).