Japanese knotweed friend or foe?

I’m called on a regular basis about Japanese knotweed taking over a clients property.  They would think it foe.

On the other hand.

Some of the most important health benefits of Japanese knotweed include its ability to prevent and treat cognitive disorders, improve heart health, lower your risk of cancer, reduce gastrointestinal distress, lower blood pressure, maintain proper insulin levels, and many other unique benefits, people that take it as an herb would think it is friend.

I’m hired by the foe clients.  Japanese knotweed is extremely invasive to the environment.  It chokes out everything in it’s path and is a weed that spreads rapidly. 

“Spraying isn’t cool”. Mary Bowen

Japanese knotweed can grow up to 10cm per day, and because of this rapacious growth, it has been known to cause damage to building structures by targeting weak points, such as cracks in masonry, and attempting to grow through them.  To destroy Japanese knotweed  on site, hiring goats will clear out the invasion by eating the plant to the ground, this would be your first phase of the project.   The next phase is you must dig out and remove as much root as possible, then repeatedly destroy the regrowth.

Japanese knotweed produces seeds.  It is extremely unlikely that they would germinate in the wild. New plants can grow from the nodes of pieces of green stem, in soil or water. Machinery such as strimmers or flails will spread it in this way.  Hiring goats will eliminate the spread of seeds because the goats eat all of the plant.  Goats do not spread seeds of invasive plants they eat because of their digestive system and how it functions.  They will eat the invasive plants, digest them, and when spreading their manure it will not pass back into the environment.  A win/win eco-friendly way of cleaning up the environment. 

Goats will trample their manure into the ground providing much needed nutrients for the eco-system to flourish and bring back the pollinators that have been pushed out of the environment from the invasive growth of the Japanese knotweed.

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