Eradication Guide

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Kudzu belongs to the family Leguminosae. So like its cousin the pea plant, it is a legume. Kudzu is in the genus Pueraria. Its botanical name is Pueraria thunbergiana.

Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Countries were invited to build exhibits to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. The Japanese Government constructed a beautiful 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 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.

Kudzu's most vocal advocate was Channing Cope of Covington, Georgia, who promoted use of the vine to control erosion. Cope wrote about kudzu in articles for the Atlanta Constitution, and talked about its virtues frequently on his daily WSB-AM radio program broadcast from his front porch. During the 1940s, he travelled 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.

Other facts about Kudzu:

• Common names for Kudzu include: "mile-a-minute vine", "foot-a-night vine", and "the vine that ate the South".
• It has claimed an estimated seven million acres of land in the Southeastern United States and is currently consuming over 120,000 acres per year.
• Typically, only the kudzu that is encroaching on developed property is controlled, while undeveloped areas are ignored, allowing it to continue spreading in all other directions. It is not uncommon for kudzu to completely surround a piece of property.
• Kudzu kills or degrades other plants by smothering them under a solid blanket of leaves, by girdling woody stems and tree trunks, and by breaking branches or uprooting entire trees and shrubs through the sheer force of its weight.
• Once established, kudzu plants grow rapidly. Under ideal conditions, kudzu vines grow sixty feet (!) each year.
• A single Kudzu vine can extend 100 feet from the center of the plant and be up to 6 inches in diameter.
• Kudzu roots are fleshy, with massive taproots 7+ inches in diameter, 6 feet or more in length, sometimes weighing 400 pounds.
• 30 vines can grow from a single root crown .
• Kudzu can be killed back with certain herbicides labeled for such use. To kill the root, repeat applications over several years is usually required.

Cross section of 5 inch kudzu vine.

This vine was growing eighty feet up into the canopy of a specimen White Oak Tree at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The mushrooms appeared shortly after this vine was cut.