mk30i'm learning so much from the book "nature at war: american environments and WWII", edited by Thomas Robertson, Richard P. Tucker, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Peter Mansoor:
"In the South, the government encouraged farmers to plant quick- growing kudzu, the bane of many of today’s native plant enthusiasts and gardeners, with payments up to eight dollars an acre. Hence, even after the war cut off access to kudzu seed from Japan, Soil Conservation Service nurseries in states across the South kept farmers supplied with kudzu. Kudzu and lespedeza took on new significance during the war. Because nitrate factories produced bombs as well as fertilizers, enriching soils with nitrogen-fixing crops meant more artificial nitrogen could go to munitions. As one 1942 booster of legumes put it, “Oregon’s 200,000,000 pound crop of Austrian winter pea, vetch, and crimson clover seed this year is the quivalent of 24,000,000 100-pound bombs.” The crops’ use as animal feed also took on new wartime meaning. Legumes like kudzu made protein-rich hay that could replace the protein-rich components of animal fodder cut off by the war, like fish meal, which were seen as essential to maintaining and boosting meat production."
#WWII #agriculture #history #AgriculturalHistory #kudzu #InvasiveSpecies #plants
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