act as friendly bioagents
Helping goats sample kudzu at N.C. State’s Centennial Campus are Dr. Jean Spooner, member of N.C. State’s Water Quality Group and professor and Extension specialist in the College’s Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, and Dr. Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, associate professor in the College’s Crop Science and Animal Science departments.
The goats are part of a project in biological control of the plant at a kudzu-infested site along North Creek on Centennial Campus. Goats, contained within a solar-powered electric fence, are being tried as experimental low-cost, environmentally friendly bioagents. They’re from the Meat Goat and Forage System program run by Luginbuhl.The project, conducted through N.C. State’s Soil and Water Environmental Technology Center, is intended to restore North Creek’s ecological integrity and functions and its riparian corridor.
“Tests show kudzu leaves contain 23.7 percent crude protein and the stems almost 12 percent,” Luginbuhl says. “That’s far above the required nutritional level and why the goats look so good after eating it for two weeks.”
In nearby plots, researchers also are using selective herbicide treatments to compare its efficacy with the goats’.
Spooner said N.C. State researchers want to establish the creek’s corridor as an outdoor field study area to showcase how development can be done in concert with watershed protection and water quality improvements.
The experiment is part of a larger project to restore North Creek that is partially funded by a $287,500 U.S. Department of Agriculture National Water Quality Grant.
— Art Latham
