Ohia trees are dying rapidly, Why?

[Lee M-S]

I noticed a fairly straight line of purple mushrooms in my yard. I recently read a novel (Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult) that said a particular kind of purple mushroom thrives on ammonia-rich soil, and is often found growing above dead bodies.

My theories are:
1) there's a dead body in my yard
2) my septic line is leaking
3) it's something else.

quote:

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Originally posted by gypsy69

P. Maise, strange purple mushrooms. These purple sometimes pink mushrooms are popping up by the hundreds if not thousands. You know that large ring or circle of dead grass I mentioned previously, well now its a living ring of purple mushrooms. No where else in the yard do we see these, we have never seen a mushroom that looks like these. The bright colors makes us feel as though they may be very poisonous. 60 yard long circle or ring of purple mushrooms, my younger boys beat down with their super hero swords, funny stuff.

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[TomK]

Lee

"My theories are:
1) there's a dead body in my yard
2) my septic line is leaking
3) it's something else."

I like this thinking. I would replace theories with hypotheses and you need to design an experiment to test them, but liked the way you worded point 3.

[kalakoa]

Rat lung, fire ants, poisonous african snails, coqui frog, all transplants, brought into south Puna and spreading outward.

Glad to see Puna is first in the State at something, for once.

[Justin]

Reading the article, I don't see any kind of plan being developed to combat it. They don't even know how it is getting from tree to tree, so I can't fathom how you would combat something you don't even know about.

[kalakoa]

any kind of plan being developed to combat it

I think there might be some studies.

[shockwave rider]

I have been watching a set of undeveloped lots in HPP that I drive past several days each week, they have gone from having seemingly healthy ohia trees to completely dead in about a month. First just a few trees started to develop brown tops, which then spread through the tree and into other trees, until every single ohia tree has died in a 5 acre area. This is going to change our landscape drastically if it continues.

[pbmaise]

Gypsy's observations may be connected. We know for sure fungus is involved since the mushrooms came to surface to generate spores.

The reason his grass died is a dense fungal mat of mycelia is just below the surface. This mat uses up available water and nutrients. Further the mat acts to deflect water.

It is in ring form since it grows outward. Once an area has been been affected, the nutrients needed for the fungus are gone. It dies in this area. So the center of the ring fills back in with grass.

Now go to Leilani and watch a D9. It lays the entire lot level, and sometimes directly buries tons of food for termites and fungus. The purpose is to install a nice big flat lawn that we fertilize.

That lawn, the ammonia In the fertilizer and all that buried Ohia is the perfect setup for an explosion in the fungus that can be spread by the wind.

We know Ohia roots are shallow too.

To prove this go to Gypsy's house and look at his lawn. Mainly under that dead grass and healthy grass. Now go find a recent dead area of Ohia. Do you see same dense mat? Compare to healthy Ohia area.

This fungus may be killing Ohia with zero evidence you can observe above the soil level. It might be starving the area below the Ohia of an essential nutrient especially the one called water.

I wager Ohia need water.

If it fungus, the standing timber in these dead Ohia trees represent a continual source of spores to infect more trees. Shouldn't they be cut down, wood processed for any value and branches burned?

How to prevent this in next post.

[pbmaise]

Step 1. Know your enemy.

Maybe Calvatia cyathiformis (the edible purple -spored puffball).
There are about 60 types of fungi that cause fairy rings.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74100.html


Fungi can deplete the soil of readily available nutrients such as nitrogen , causing plants growing within the circle to be stressed which leads to plant discoloration.

Step 2. Confirm theory
Do not wait for government.
Billions of spores from an invasive fungus are now blowing around the area. They make solving the coqui problem look easy.

Step 3. Experiment saving an Ohia stand
The moment a stand looks stressed try adding more water. Try some nitrogen with water. Consider fungicides with water. (This is totally tongue in cheek, maybe the government has been trying to save the forest from people like you that plant and fertilize the lawn you stand upon whilst your mouth is agape and head fixed upwards unkowningly ignorant you caused the problem .)

Step 4. Eliminate all breeding grounds. How many acres of fertilized lawns existed in Puna 50 years ago versus today? Do you see pool table leveled lots right in the middle of an Ohia forest.

Step 5. Take photographs. That will be all that is left of Ohia trees. The firm policy of the County of Hawaii is absolutely nothing will happen "because we can't be certain of unintended consequences."

[Guest]

PMaise, thank you for sharing your thoughts to this. The fungus that is spreading through the Ohia has been very destructive around lower Puna. The bulldozing of large parcels has been a common farming practice for decades here with papaya and flowers. Why would the fertilizer that's used on those thousands of acres not act the same as the fert in ones yard?. I do feel that a few contributed factors have merged to allow this fungus to spread so fast.
Sweet potatoes get planted, say between or around new Gmo papaya farms and all over its dozer pushed rotting burms. Then they die from desease or spray, The dozer rips this up and spreads the first new Ohia killing spores. Ofcourse this is only hypothetical or an opinion to how this could have started with the GMO Papaya.
Maybe an off the wall question here? Has anyone in lower Puna had much luck growing Kava? This was going to be a big producer a decade ago. Then most I saw started showing desease or dieoff signs from possibly fungus, Could it be related?.

[pbmaise]

Gypsy let's stick to main question I posed.

Could a root fungus be attacking the Ohia?

Researching I already posted the 1972 report on possibly the shoestring root-rot (Armillaria mellea) in Ohia.

Today I found another variety called Armillaria gallicia.

This is from 2010 report.

Armillaria gallicia is an opportunistic pathogen, or an aggressive pathogen. A recent study suggests that A. gallica can be highly pathogenic in some areas of the eastern United States and it is an important component of forest decline (2), especially under increasing stressors such as climate change. The isolation of A. gallica from declining stands on both introduced and endemic hosts under drought conditions suggests this pathogen is a contributing factor to forest decline on the island of Hawaii.

This came from a scientific journal that dates 2010. The article recorded the first observation of this fungus In Hawaii. Samples were taken on Big Island.

Added reference
Editor-in-Chief: R. Michael Davis
Published by The American Phytopathological Society
December 2010,
Volume 94, Number 12 Page 1510
DOI: 10.1094/PDIS-04-10-0266
First Report of an Armillaria Root Disease Pathogen, Armillaria gallica, Associated with Several New Hosts in Hawaii
M.-S. Kim, Department of Forestry, Environment, and Systems, Kookmin University, Seoul, Korea 136-702;
and J. W. Hanna and N. B. Klopfenstein, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 1221 South Main, Moscow, ID 83843