An insect that feeds on the aggressive kudzu plant may sound like the answer to weed-control prayers, but there's a devilish catch. The kudzu bug, as this non-native insect is called, also feeds on cultivated legumes, such as soybeans, snap beans, lima beans and flat beans. "It's a shame it moves over to so many other hosts," says Greg Hodges, Division of Plant Industry bureau chief for pest diagnostics, in Gainesville. The bug, sometimes referred to as the bean plataspid, also has been found to reproduce on wisteria, a genus of leguminous landscape plants considered weeds by many, says Wayne Gardner, an entomology professor at the University of Georgia in Griffin. "We're getting a lot of reports on wisteria and of [the kudzu bug] surviving really well on it," he says.
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