Japanese Knotweed: The alien shrub that can't be stopped | Hacker News Reader

Japanese Knotweed: The alien shrub that can't be stopped

bbc.com

54 pointsComputerGuru25 comments

Interesting. I wonder if there's any research as to viability of this plant in terraforming/eco-forming on other planets.

I mean, I don't believe in actually doing this to other planets at all, but the experiment of trying to get something to grow, to bootstrap an ecosystem on a fundamentally barren world, that's at least interesting.

Despite the bombastic title, it’s just a plant - it needs water, nutrients and the right amount of CO2.

The term for this is terraforming and there’s been a lot of research into it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming

If you want to terraform, you shouldn't bother with other planets when there's plenty of areas on Earth begging to be terraformed, such as the deserts Sahara, Great Australian, Arabian, Gobi, Kalahari, Syrian, Chihuahuanetc and most of the western US. Save yourself from certain death and make a fortune here at home developing land that can't be used and no one wants.

> Save yourself from certain death

Death is already certain anyway. Might as well make it an exciting one.

probably not what you meant, but: are you saying that we shouldn't care about global warming as long as we have fun?

Death may be inevitable, but it's still best to die on one's own terms when possible, rather than it being imposed on oneself like global warming is.

In populated areas, Japanese Knotweed is a pain, but at least people see it and try to mitigate it. I go fishing in upstate NY, and you used to be able to walk along the river banks that were mostly just flat stones deposited during times of high water. Not anymore. Now the river bank is mostly an impenetrable wall of Japanese Knotweed. It sucks.

Sure wish some of the claims came with additional detail, perhaps in the spots where they are so clearly burdened by extra hyperbole.

> The plant has even been known to render properties entirely worthless.

Then in the linked article,

> Lenders say the knotweed will eventually undermine the foundations of her Uplands Road house

Really? All foundations in cases like this, every time?

And how likely is this to happen to a given foundation with plant in vicinity vs. the likelihood the lenders are speaking from some other pressure to find an objective point around which to stake their denial/counteroffer/upsell/whatever?

And was it lenders as in one, a company of people, or several companies?

Knotweed is pretty horrific to homeowners. In the UK specifically, it seems that you can be liable for damage to neighboring properties done by knotweed on your land. Similar to the land a gas station was built on, its value can be negative due to the cost of cleanup. For knotweed, that's a 20 foot deep hole several times larger than the visible infestation, and in the UK, you can't cart the soil somewhere, you need to sterilize it and bury it in place. Since the rhizomes spread everywhere, tens of meters laterally, an infected house is the sign of an infected neighborhood, any cleanup must be coordinated to be effective.

While trying to sell a property I have been told that if it was found within 5 meters that would greatly impact the selling price for that specific reason. And it wasn't something super expensive to begin with.

Dutch researchers claim the Japanese leaf flea, the natural enemy of the Japanese knotweed, can be used to combat it. The universe always rebalances itself.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/11/japanese-leaf-flea-may...

Now the classic question is do those fleas eat anything else?

And does anything eat those fleas?

I’m currently leading a low intensity war with a 7x4 meter patch on my property. The best strategy so far is turning a small portion of the patch into a lawn and letting the robomower take care of it. I’m making slow but steady progress and in 5-6 years I should be done.

How do you treat the clippings to keep them from propagating?

Do you cover the trimmed areas to keep them from refreshing the rhizomes with sunlight?

IANAGardener, but the shoots don’t turn green until they’re 10-15 cm high. I guess that means that photosynthesis hasn’t started?

My original plan was to cut the stems and inject with glysophate but I only managed one round before they started requiring a license to purchase it.

I see this plant all over the place in my area on the East coast of Canada. It's troubling.

> Complicated ecosystem problem ->

Everybody expects to have it solved overnight for free

Why to hire someone to do it? Its biology after all. They should make a queue to volunteer and fix the problem for me. We will not pay a dime for having this job done

> TV platform access ->

We will gladly pay each month for this job

Nothing is unstoppable unless you really try to stop it.

I've had mead from it before; that's the only good thing I can say about it.

Yeah Cambridge brewing company has made a nice knotweed beer

Then why is my resveratrol still so expensive!

I’m pretty certain glyphosate kills this.

Addressed in the article- applied incorrectly/naïvely it can actually make it worse.

Meh, bittersweet is worse - Harder to remove, more prolific, and it kills large trees. Knotweed and honeysuckle are comparatively easy to contain, except they camoflauge bittersweet very well

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