Fair enough, I wasn’t trying to be forceful about recommending pesticides, I sure as heck don’t feel comfortable doing that I was just trying to relay what I know about the effectiveness of different methods.

One useful perspective that this paper proposes is instead of trying to eradicate it with a nuclear pesticide removal option, treat it as a crop to be harvested and turned into things humans want.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8705504/

Of course this is a bit of an idealistic perspective, but one actionable item I think that would be possible is raising awareness that japanese knotweed is both a problematically prolific invasive and also as a potential raw material to make valuable things out of or at least create lucrative amounts of honey off of with nearby hives. Then one could envision a public policy where harvesting of japanese knotweed from public lands was allowed along certain conditions (depending of course on local laws and the local political realities).

I mean… even if it remains illegal to remove japanese knotweed or harvest in huge amounts that reduce its population significantly in an area… there is definitely an argument that who is going to stop you if you do it in a way that benefits everybody? Yeah someone eventually will… but idk. Just a thought.