Dean Greg Crawford | July 22, 2013 | Road to Discovery blog
Today’s ride was full of rolling hills, from the time we left Greenville all the way into Auburn. The weather held out for the most part, with only about 20 minutes of rainfall. One thing that defined the ride today, as well as yesterday, was the ubiquitous plant kudzu. Kudzu, which originated in East Asia, now is considered an invasive species in these states. Around here, it is known as “the vine that ate the South.” But the fast-growing, hardy plant was actually introduced into the United States on scientific grounds in 1876 by the Soil Erosion Service and Civilian Conservation Corp. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had it on a list of suggested ground cover plants until 1953, and now it’s listed as a Federal Noxious Weed, covering 7.4 million acres of the Southeast and expanding at a rate of 120,000 acres a year.