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The Fijian island being strangled by vines
- emmelaich 4y agoParts of Fiji get enormous amounts of rain. The capital Suva always looks like it's being invaded by the jungle. Suva gets 3,000 millimeters (120 inches) per year.
- mhewett 4y agoI once owned a 1.5 acre property that had approximately 1.4 acres of English ivy on it. It was horrible; the ivy is, by all practical means, impossible to kill. An area covered with a tarp for two months looks exactly like an uncovered area. The only way to get rid of it was to pull the roots out of the ground, mostly by hand. And it grows new roots every meter or so. If you want to get rich, invent a way to kill ivy that does not also kill people.
- tomrod 4y agoGoats don't take it out?
- ceejayoz 4y agoApparently that works well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/towson-university-brings-in-goats-to-tackle-ivy-problem/2014/11/24/4ece2132-7426-11e4-a5b2-e1217af6b33d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/towson-univer...
- blamazon 4y agoGoats work. Where I am in Georgia (US) there's a local service where they bring temporary fencing and some goats and plop them in your property to chow down. Once you decide they're done, they pull them out. The operators have expert knowledge of local ordinances and permits and whatnot. They make good money and the goats have other economic uses. The only thing is you can't really tell the goats what to eat and not eat... so you may have to get creative with the fencing, which costs more. Fun fact about goats: you know that 'goaty' taste of goat cheese and goat milk? That's from coagulated proteins - if the producer is gentle with handling the milk, avoiding agitation, and you consume it right away, you can make cheese and milk without that noticeable taste. This is really meaningful for small scale goatery because you can avoid the use of big heavy expensive dairy cows. Industrial manufacturers are also figuring out ways to stop the coagulation while being able to agitate the fluid. (Convenient if you want to pipe it anywhere)
- e40 4y agoThere are chemicals you can use, but you have to soak them into the roots. And the warnings on the bottles are scary as hell.
- mc32 4y agoI think Japanese Knotweed is a tad worse to eradicate. The roots go deep: https://www.environetuk.com/japanese-knotweed/removal https://www.environetuk.com/japanese-knotweed/removal
- Mistletoe 4y agoI spray an extract from this plant on my plants, it’s a great antifungal. The product is called Regalia. This plant seems armed with everything it needs.
- depereo 4y agoWould running some pigs in the area for a while help? They'd root it all up.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoPigs are the only thing I've seen that can hurt Japanese Knotweed.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoNot to mention that handling it can lead to contact dermatitis.
- swagasaurus-rex 4y agoPerhaps a use for those Boston Dynamics style dog-robots.
- aaron695 4y ago
- gerdesj 4y agoI'm not sure you are describing ivy which generally tries to parasitize other plants/trees and is quite slow growing. It will also climb up walls and spread. I've never seen acres of the stuff. It is not a ground spreader type plant, ie it won't run across your lawn or field. It will run along fences and hedges but it does not run into open ground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera_helix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera_helix is classified as a weed in the US and elsewhere quite rightly because it is non-native. It is not a fast spreader at all. You can peel it off walls and pull roots relatively easily. You can simply cut it in several places and it will die off. You can also paint or spray the leaves with something nasty from Monsanto if killing everything is your bag but it isn't mine.
- tsomctl 4y agoEnglish ivy is a ground spreader, at least where I live. It won't grow on the ground if it gets a lot of sun, but ground shaded by trees will turn into a thick mat that is impossible to pull up. Some yards have it growing as a ground cover in the flower beds. You can't pull it off walls or the ground easily. It grows tendrils (roots?) into anything porous, which makes it extremely difficult to pull up. If it's growing on the ground, it's just a thick mat that is impossible to pull up. And while I wouldn't call it a fast spreader, if you ignore it for a couple of years, it will start to take over. Source: I used to work for a yard company, and I have it in my own yard.
- jgwil2 4y agoEnglish ivy may be slow growing in your region but it is definitely an invasive, ground-spreading pest in other places. Where I live it's not uncommon at all to see large swaths of wooded parkland covered in it.
- gerdesj 4y agoI live in SW England (ie quite warm n wet which is ideal for this stuff) and it really doesn't compare in the invasive stakes. We've just had a rather warm autumn and winter is a bit shag too and ivy is not close to the top of the weeds list at all. Shallow roots means easy removal. Ivy isn't actually that pernicious either it seems. I own a company and on our land there are three whopping oaks and there is quite a lot of ivy: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.9470006,-2.6381093,3a,75y,230.44h,120.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQuppnWDgdPIkvZhDpTiRuw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.9470006,-2.6381093,3a,75y,... The above link shows a bewildering amount of tree and undergrowth but there are three really large oaks in there and I will preserve all of that lot. It's in a town and a loosely coupled island for a lot of wildlife - it's quite a bit larger than it looks. The oaks are around 200 to 250 years old judging by girth. There's also the remains of some Alms houses to the left of the view, roughly to the right of the pedestrian. If you look closely there is a lot of ivy there! Also two of the oaks have a lot of ivy cover and I was worried that it might weaken them. But: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera_helix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera_helix links to: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/plants/wild-flowers/ivy/ https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/pl... and we get the assertion: "but it doesn’t harm the tree at all". I'm not totally convinced but I do have access to experts on this (SSDC int al.) so I'll take their advice.
- e40 4y agoKudzu... I've driven a lot in NC/SC (Eastern US) and it is truly amazing how many forests along those highways (small and big) are overrun with the stuff.
- blamazon 4y agoIn Georgia, where weather conditions are optimal for kudzu nearly year round, it is an unstoppable menace. After society falls it will envelop everything we have built. Haven't seen The Walking Dead, did they get that right?
- dinkleberg 4y agoAnd at least here in NC, where you have kudzu you have the seriously annoying kudzu bugs. If you’re wearing white they’ll hunt you down and if you squish them they’ll stain.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago> While kudzu is certainly prevalent, it is vines from the morning glory family, especially merremia peltata, which are now wreaking havoc in Vanua Levu.
- ch4s3 4y agoIt looks scary from the road, but never extends very far, as it requires a lot of direct sunlight. Forrests proper certainly aren't overrun in the Carolinas by kudzu. That said it is invasive and a bit of a menace.
- chiph 4y agoThere is at least one horror film about it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ooshnu/2647762012 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ooshnu/2647762012 A high school classmate tried to ferment it as a science-fair project. The idea was to have a cheap source of alcohol for fuel (this was before ethanol production from corn became common). Nope. Didn't ferment for squat. He should have asked the local moonshiners before starting on the project - they would likely have already tried. The only thing Kudzu is good for is feeding goats.
- flint 4y agoMares eat oats and does eat oats And little lambs eat ivy A kid'll eat ivy too Wouldn't you?
- intrasight 4y agoLooks just like TN/SC/NC to me. I think we need more goats.
- miohtama 4y agoCan goats digest vines?
- nomel 4y agoWe had goats clear out all of our blackberry bushes. They also ate some shoes while they were at it. At that point, I realized the answer to "Can goats digest ..." is probably yes. In this case, it again holds true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNT9kv2q85A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNT9kv2q85A 1:06 for a before/after.
- polartx 4y agoGrowing up in Texas, we had a type of thorny briar we called “Goats head”, it was like natures caltrop. As the weed that produced it died (by human or drought), the goats head thorns remained attaching themselves to fur, clothing, or bare feet. Someone convinced my mother that a pair of goats would rid us of those weeds, thorns and all. The goats systematically ate _everything else_, including grass, hay, the bark off of trees, and even a wooden dog house. But they never ate the goat-heads.
- goldforever 4y agoLOL - these vines are normal here in Fiji, nothing to do with climate change.
- adzm 4y ago> While kudzu is certainly prevalent, it is vines from the morning glory family, especially merremia peltata, which are now wreaking havoc in Vanua Levu. Once this vine grows over the tree canopy, it can spread for miles devouring everything in its path. Kudzu is a problem many places but it is also overexaggerated. There are plenty of contenders for the worst invasive plants.
- marmakoide 4y agoGiant hogweed. That thing is scary, also known as Stalin's Revenge. It requires a protective suit to be worked with, impossible to eradicate, inedible.
- aidenn0 4y agoAlso merremia peltata is native to American Samoa, but has caused similar problems there since the early 90's cyclones hit.
- dirtyid 4y agoI know it's a weed, but looks amazing. If one builds huge building scaffold with chain link fence, would it get enveloped to create grandios of Poison Ivy architecture? Kind of want to plop down the eiffel tower and see what happens.