Just one of hundreds of photos
Posted on 02/18/2011 5:52:09 AM PST by Red Badger
Sleeping Beauty's kingdom was overgrown by vines when she fell into a deep sleep. Researchers at the Smithsonian in Panama and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee received more than a million dollars from the U.S. National Science Foundation to discover why real vines are overtaking the American tropics. Data from eight sites show that vines are overgrowing trees in all cases.
"We are witnessing a fundamental structural change in the physical make-up of forests that will have a profound impact on the animals, human communities and businesses that depend on them for their livelihoods," said Stefan Schnitzer, research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
Tropical forests hold more than half of Earth's terrestrial species and much of the planet's carbon. If vines take over tropical forests the rules used to model ecosystem services, such as regulation of the water cycle and carbon storage may no longer apply.
"In 2002, Oliver Phillips, a professor at the University of Leeds in the U.K., published a controversial study claiming that vines were becoming more common in the Amazon," said Schnitzer. "By pulling together data from eight different studies, we now have irrefutable evidence that vines are on the rise not only in the Amazon, but throughout the American tropics."
On Barro Colorado Island in Panama, the proportion of vines in tree crowns has more than doubled over the past 40 years. In French Guiana, liana vines increased 60 percent faster than trees from 1992 to 2002. Similar reports from Brazil, the Bolivian Amazon and subtropical forests in South Carolina in the United States confirm that vines are becoming more common and represent more of the total forest biomass.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Well, we made it thru global cooling scare, the global warming craziness, the AGW climate change might be diminishing... so how many $trillions and inalienable rights will the attack of the vines cost us?
America is a very big place.
Yea, that Kudzu is taking over all the beautiful scenery in Tenn. It’s scarey.
FDR .........
From Wiki:
Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s, the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion. The Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years.
Another Democratic screw-up...........
It has now spread to Canada...............
Canada
Kudzu was discovered July 2009 in a small patch, 110 metres wide and 30 metres deep, on a south-facing slope on the shore of Lake Erie near Leamington, Ontario, about 50 kilometres southeast of Windsor.[24]
Ecologist Gerald Waldron made the Leamington find while walking along the beach. He spotted the kudzu instantly, having read about its destructive expansion in the southeastern United States.
Other countries
During World War II, kudzu was introduced to Vanuatu and Fiji by United States armed forces to serve as camouflage for equipment.[citation needed] It is now a major weed.
Kudzu is also becoming a problem in northeastern Australia, and has been seen in isolated spots in Northern Italy (Lago Maggiore).
Biomass and ethanol both can be made from kudzu and other invasive species instead of corn..............
LOL
Yeah but without the benefit of driving food prices up. When you use corn for fuel, all meats from corn eating animals such as hogs go up in price. Without using corn as fuel we wouldn't have those much higher prices on meats such as bacon.
And all those “farmers” wouldn’t get their $ub$idie$............
No idea hw much nutritional value there is to it, though.
Nutritional Information
Fresh Kudzu Leaves
8 Ounces (net weight)
Category Amount % RDV
Calories 258 12 %
Total Fat 0.1 g 0.2 %
Dietary Fiber 10.3 g 45.7 %
Protein 2.1 g 4.8 %
Calcium 34.3 mg 3.4 %
Phosphorous 41.1 mg 4.3 %
Iron 1.4 mg 7 %
“We are witnessing a fundamental structural change in the physical make-up of forests that will have a profound impact on the animals, human communities and businesses that depend on them for their livelihoods,”
and there is absolutely NOTHING we mere mortals can do about it.
I sure hope they burned that patch out with flamethrowers. It’s the only way to get rid of kunzu. You have to stop it before it gets a toehold. Cutting it back just pisses it off.
Apparently, kudzu can be used successfully to make alcohol. Problem is, when you attempt to ‘harvest’ kudu, it releases chemicals that work as well as round-up on the plants below it. This is nasty stuff.
A well established kudzu root can be as big as a tree trunk and weigh as much as 200 pounds. But it is a starchy root and as such its interior is edible..........
Just one of hundreds of photos
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