The Soviet Union had high hopes for hogweed, which was supposed to feed livestock, but it has become the main weed of modern Russia. Millions of rubles are spent on eradicating hogweed, the juice of which is dangerous to human health, but it still grows again. Hogweed has captured vast territories of the country and has become a disaster for the fields. In the second half of the 1940s, the USSR needed to urgently restore the economy after World War II and find a cheap and fast way to feed livestock. Then the best option for raw material for silage production seemed to be Sosnowsky's hogweed: it is quite unpretentious, rich in protein and vitamins, and also grows quickly. Its cheapness also turned out to be an undeniable advantage: hogweed was easier to cultivate than other traditional forage crops, such as corn. The plant was actively cultivated, it was brought to different regions, and it gradually began to capture territories. Hogweed, once it got into the fields, began to spread and occupy all the free spaces around and along the roads and further in the forest belts. The process was especially rapid in the early 1990s, when fields and agricultural lands were abandoned after the collapse of the USSR. After 15-20 years, Sosnowsky's hogweed became a real scourge of the territories of Russia and the former Soviet republics. Russia has the hardest time: according to various estimates, it now covers 20 to 40 percent of agricultural land in the country, and now hogweed grows even in the Arctic. Sosnowsky's hogweed is very dangerous, hundreds of Russians suffer from it every year, dozens are hospitalized with severe skin lesions. Hogweed contains furanocoumarins - substances that sharply increase the body's sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. It causes the most severe burns upon contact with the skin on clear sunny days. But short-term and weak exposure of the skin area stained with the plant's juice to the sun is enough. As a rule, a second-degree burn occurs on the affected areas of the skin, especially dangerous is the sap of the plant getting into the eyes, this can result in blindness. Most often, children suffer from hogweed. Furanocoumarins also stimulate the production of the hormone estrogen, so hogweed cannot be fed to cattle. Cows may stop milking and develop infertility. The mutagenic effect of hogweed juice has also been identified: it can cause gross violations of the structure of chromosomes, and also inhibits cell division my insta https://www.instagram.com/cvetochki.l... #hogweed #hogweedofsnowsky #hogweedxisiberian #antihogweed #hogweedburns #hogweedburns #hogweedfight #howtogetawayfromhogweed