'The vine that ate the South' invades Canada Special

Kudzu, the invasive vine overrunning the southern United States, has been found in Canada for the first time. A patch on the north shore of Lake Erie near the town of Kingsville, Ontario, was first noticed in July of this year.

A patch running 120 meters along the shore and 50 meters inland was first noticed by ecologist Gerald Walltron in July 2009. Only recently was it positively identified as Pueraria montana, commonly known as Kudzu. Kudzu was imported for the first time in 1876, as a decorative plant for the Philadelphia Centennial Expo. The Japanese government planned to construct a large Japanese garden and kudzu was included in that selection of plants. Fifty years later it was discovered to be a useful forage and erosion control crop. Farmers and erosion control experts planted hundreds of thousands of acres of kuduz and it was promoted as the “miracle vine.” Today, it is more widely known as the 'mile-a-minute' vine than the 'miracle vine'. Originally admired for its rapid growth, up to 30 centimeters per day in ideal conditions, this very characteristic is the reason it is being extirpated today. In the ideal growing conditions of the American south it has, literally, overgrown entire buildings. More importantly it overgrows and kills trees. Its rampant growth also forces out native species of plants and makes it the bane of farmers when it invades their fields. In 1998 it was declared a noxious weed in the United States. By one estimate, kudzu spreads at the rate of 150,000 acres annually. While conditions are ideal in the southern United States it has also been reported as far north as New York, Ohio and Michigan. It is presumed that the Canadian patch originated in Ohio and floated across Lake Erie. Canadian officials are attempting to determine its origins by genotyping it and then comparing that data with similar data from the patches in northern Ohio near the southern shore of Lake Ontario. The Kudzu invasion of southern Ontario is hardly surprising but particularly disturbing because of its potential impact on local agriculture. Soybean is one of the most significant crops in southern Ontario and kudzu has been associated with increased incidence of soybean rust. “We have been watching the kudzu vine move toward Canada for some time now, with great apprehension. Our colleagues in the south have been fighting a tough battle with this invader, so we need to take immediate action in Ontario to stop kudzu in its tracks," says Rachel Gagnon, Coordinator of the O.I.P.C. (Ontario Invasive Plant Council), a collective of organizations collaborating to address the spread of alien invasive plants in Ontario. According to Gagnon, Canada's climate may be its best defense against the 'vine that ate the south.' She notes the patch identified is “in southern Ontario, on a south facing slope, on the lake” in a location where the summer is warmest and the winter temperatures are moderated by the 'lake effect'. Also, she points out that the patch “may be 10 years old and is not spreading as quickly as in the southern United States.” There are no immediate plans to try to extirpate the patch in southern Ontario. According to Gagnon with the onset of winter the plant will become dormant and there is no need for action before spring. Therefore, "at this point the MNR [Ministry of Natural Resources], the OMAFRA [Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Farms and Rural Affairs] and CFIA [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] met to determine genotype and control options." In the United States a variety of control options have been deployed including hand cutting, mowing, controlled burns, herbicide and grazing animals such as goats and pigs.