DUMMERSTON — To be honest, I'm one of the world's biggest admirers of Japanese knotweed.
This plant has helped define and shape who I am and has provided me strength and healing, as well as motivated me to write a book, while it continues to provide me a source of income.
We are now seeing Japanese knotweed flourish in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene, and the plant is gaining a further bad reputation for spreading throughout the flooded area, though I see it as a gift.
From a human-centered perspective, having this plant around is devastating. From my perspective, though, I see it as Nature doing what Nature does.
And Nature doesn't always comply with the way we wish it to be.
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As a health-care provider over the years, I have successfully used knotweed as medicine for hundreds of individuals suffering with Lyme disease, including myself. It has powerful antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects, especially for the central nervous system.
We have also seen the plant spread in nearly the same trajectory and at the same rate as Lyme disease has spread throughout the Northeast, providing the remedy along the way. To me, it is not a coincidence this plant is flourishing, especially with us hearing of increased incidence of Lyme disease in Vermont. The roots of Japanese Knotweed contain resveratrol, the powerful compound touted in red wine and, in fact, this plant possesses higher concentrations of resveratrol than any other plant in the world!
And many pharmaceutical and supplement companies make use of this plant to extract this compound, and it provides hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly revenues for them.
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Ecologically speaking, knotweed is a pioneer species, spreading over disturbed lands to help stabilize the soil and create biomass to enrich the land. It also tolerates some of the most polluted water and soil. In some cases, it can even sequester the toxins and heavy metals and transmute them into less-harmful chemicals, and therefore clean the ecosystem of the pollutants.
There is a good reason knotweed moved in with the floods. As we all know, those waters carried some nasty, toxic things, and now a plant is there to help remediate the soil. I also observed that it assisted in stabilizing some river banks while the floodwaters tore away at other, more “native” areas.
And with this plant's widespread presence and great growing ability, I also see potential for using Japanese knotweed as a biofuel source. It can grow inches a day and reach 8-12 feet tall, and one can get at least two harvests a year. The stalk becomes woody when dry, and it grows in convenient and accessible roadsides and fields.
Oh, and by the way, we can eat the plant as well. It is very tasty. Now is the time to harvest the spring growth - up to a foot or so - and cook it up, sweet or savory, like rhubarb or asparagus. Bees make wonderful honey with the flowers as well. Of course, it is important to not harvest the knotweed for consumption in polluted areas.
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So I see the flourishing of knotweed as a way to provide a potent remedy for Lyme Disease, a devastating disease that is spreading like a weed throughout our area. We should recognize the plant not as a menace to be fought, but as a valuable resource.
Knotweed is a reflection of the destructed and polluted landscape we're living in, and it is there to help clean and rebuild the soils and waterways. Using toxic chemicals to try to remove this plant, a measure that is widely proposed, will waste time, energy, and taxpayers' money, and it will add more pollution to our soil and waterways.
I believe that Nature does not make mistakes - and that, more often than not, it is the human who does.