The mile-a-minute plant: could the ultimate unwanted heirloom plant develop into a million-dollar crop?

James Dickey's wonderful poem "Kudzu" declares: "In Georgia, the legend says that you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house." This may be true in Mississippi, too. Kudzu, sometimes called the "mile-a-minute plant" or "foot-a-night vine," actually grows almost that fast--up to a foot a day and 100 feet a year.

Driving around the state during the growing season, it's hard to miss the land carpeted with thick layers of green kudzu. Buildings have been totally devoured. Hills are rounded by layers of vines. Poles are bent by their weight.

Kudzu covers an estimated 7 million acres in the United States. South Mississippi alone has 546,000 acres of infested privately owned forestland, causing a loss of $1.62 billion in potential timber sales over the past 30 years. It is in 72 of our 82 counties. According to the Mississippi Kudzu Coalition, made up of 12 agencies focused on reducing kudzu acreage, Mississippi loses $54 million annually to kudzu.

Questions about kudzu often have interesting answers:

Where did kudzu come from, and how did it get to Mississippi?

The sweet-scented, purple-flowered plant was shown at in a Japanese exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not realizing its invasive tendency, gardeners all across the eastern United States soon began using the plant for ornamental gardens.

In the 1920s, kudzu was sold as forage after it was found that animals would eat it. In the 1930s, the Soil Conservation Service began promoting kudzu for erosion control. The Civilian Conservation Corps paid farmers to plant kudzu during the Great Depression, and farmers planted many acres in Mississippi. Finally, during the 1960s, the emphasis turned to eradication instead of propagation, and in 1972, the U.S. Department of Agriculture listed kudzu as a common weed in the South.