Ohia Ash shown to Improve Ohia Health

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Entire primitive cultures were based on lunar cycles
...
world where all our practices would be ritualized around the solar and lunar cycles


That was understandable, even appropriate when our only light source was the sun and the moon.

Then came fire, and for better and worse, light bulbs.

Primitive cultures also believed myths were real, not a narrative explanation that attempted to make sense of a sometimes strange and uncertain world. They had virtually no medical care, and what they did have wasn't the few natural herbs as people prefer to remember, but bloodletting and the like. As Montaigne pointed out about doctors before science improved their practices, they “are lucky: the sun shines on their successes and the earth hides their failures.”

There were some good aspects to life in the past, but while sentimentally imagining those days of yore, it's best to also keep in mind that life expectancy was under 30 years of age.

"Hope I die before I get old" would not have been a howl of rebellion from The Who, in those days no one had to wish for what was already a simple fact of life. A life that had little hope of ever surviving to old age.

I prefer a 21st century Puna with LED light bulbs that light up the evening hours for a few pennies, and doctors who minimize blood loss while treating their patients.

"Only fear real things, such as minds full of delusions." -Last Aphorisms

[MarkP]

+1

[ohiagrrl]

Eric, Steiner's theory on biodynamics and "peppering", recommends burning (modifying/neutralizing) diseased plant material in order to then treat the blighted area. (Edited) It's not just viruses, my cousin was inoculated with hornet venom to combat a life threatening allergy. Maybe I'm misinformed but it seems pretty similar to the inoculation process but it raises an interesting question, is there enough genetic material left after fire/heat treating material to stimulate immune response in a host for a disease and at what temperature would that become a non issue?

Once again, no desire to go back to the dark ages, doesn't mean some of the innate wisdom culled from history isn't practical or applicable for today's issues. I hope you get to keep your LED lights HOT, I really hope so, but Trump is steering us toward a trade war with China so better cross fingers that your price point stays low.

If any of you have the time or inclination, this documentary on the history of symbology and how it may have pertained to ancient cultures and their relationship to the heaven's and their environments via myth is, if nothing else a fascinating theory and a well executed documentary. I'm sure it will get some of you excited in all the wrong ways. Good times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EAlTcZFwY
(In case the link doesn't open is called "Symbols of an Alien Sky." full length on YouTube. So good.)

Re: Modern medecine v. old ways. I was not ever commenting on surgical practices but since we are going there, you can't make sweeping statements about "they virtually had no medical care. Who are "they"? Different cultures experienced different bursts of medical advancement all through the ages. In these Modern Times I have personally lost family members and friend's to faulty diagnosis by doctors and barbaric modern medical practices. If my Mom had lived long enough to see the age of gene targeting therapy maybe she would have avoided being slow cooked by radiation and chemo. While significant advancements have thankfully been made medically, (props to all the geniuses out there) I have also personally been told numerous times I have ailments that are incurable (because the attending Physician couldn't diagnose the side of a barn), that have then been cured using herbs, just herbs. Wild Oregano Oil people. It's amazing stuff. From my perspective, it is a good thing "they" missed a witch or two.

Nature is powerful. Native cultures cultivated plant wisdom and medicinal herbs and pesticides, everywhere. It's fairly clear through myth that many ancient civilizations had a pretty good inkling that solar and lunar cycles effected planting and harvesting schedules and weren't just "sky chariots". In our modern day solutions, bacteria are becoming antibiotic and bleach resistant and pests are adapting to Round Up and thriving in synthetic soils. We are, as a species, surging forward in some areas while falling very short in others, just like we always have.

-1

[ohiagrrl]

This is good news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...arbonclean

[ohiagrrl]

Letter to Jimbo,

".... if you want to do scientific investigation, why not try just Phosphorous heavy fertilizer on some trees, and ash on others? Test it like a scientist would (and add a control ."

Whether you are a grad student of a professor, I realize this suggestion was friendly and I turned around and got high up on my maka maka. Apologies.

Besides broken feet which contain me to my property most of the time, the number one reason I couldn't conduct this particular experiment is because all my Ohia have now been treated with or exposed to wood ash, no room for a control.

The second problem is that in order for an experiment like this to be taken seriously by anyone who could affect policy, we would need some ability to test the trees for infestation/infection other than outward appearances. This is why it would make sense for the University to do the testing but they may not have any safe burn sites. If I get no word from anyone otherwise, I will pass your experiment on to my friends at a local NGO and, maybe they will have better luck with cooperation. Thanks again for the suggestion.

Third is that while I always wanted to go to grad school to prove something that would make a difference, it doesn't seem like the Ohia forest can afford to wait for me to win the lottery. It would be far more efficient to pass the baton, hopefully in a long line of solid folks who will develop these ideas into solutions. The Ohia are great teachers. They have helped me solve more than one mystery in a small amount of time.

To the cleaning crew.
Saw an ad on FB recommending washing down underside of car and all shoes and tools constantly. Good temporary measure to get people solidly aware but besides the fact that fungi love when you add water, this approach to blight abatement just isn't sustainable. People won't be able to satisfy these hyper vigilant standards. It will exhaust them. The forest isn't a kitchen counter but a complex system of sub systems. Processes that are natural to this environment and culture (controlled fire use) that could do some actual good are being down played. Fungi and beetles need to be desiccated (dried) or burned in their lairs to be destroyed via caustic properties of potassium hydroxide found in wood ash fed to trees, and/or the heat from fire. This is a dynamic environment of which mankind is only a small dynamic part. We live on top of the worlds biggest furnace, how can we be afraid of fire? I'm really not trying to be mean, (I don't have to try) but I have seen this sort of reaction before to other blights in gardens and livestock and it is a big time suck to apply domestic sanitizing solutions to rural problems as a long term plan.

Wood ash is great to powder chickens with to keep mites off, apply regularly before you get'em. That's really no fun. Pretty bad up in Pauillo Mauka.

[ohiagrrl]

So I think it is fairly clear that the recently recommended protocol of cleaning vehicles (to prevent spreading ROD associated fungal blight) is geared toward those of us living on dirt roads in Puna where ROD is rampant. This is the problem with that plan. If a country dweller has to drive over a mile of dirt roads of an infected forest (that are often populated with bathtub-deep puddles) in order to get home, then once home, washes their truck, THEN has to turn around and drive back out over the mile of dirt roads (with bathtub deep puddles), to go anywhere, it has all been no more than an exercise in futility. If we lived on paved drives that abutted paved roads, then one could reasonably wash their car and expect to have it be worth the effort..... bu-u-u-t those on paved roads aren't really the ones that may be transporting the elements of the disease. I think the disconnect is that people trying to create protocol are not familiar with the day to day interactions we forest dwellers have with the elements.

Studying the inner workings of the symbiotic systems of the forest is the best bet for finding solutions. Letting the forest do some of the work for us is just good ergonomics. How would the forest deal with this if we were not here?... is the main question. Reverse engineering the tree, seems like a good place to start. One can't vector the CF if one has rendered the land inhospitable to the blight.

Re: Car wash. No one likes chores. It adds to paralysis. If wood ash proves to work as well on more properties than just my own, (over the next year), then maybe through more enjoyable community building events (Luau, Imu, perhaps festivals...Burning Man/Bread and Puppet) this community could really rally around saving the forest. The annual 800,000 visitors that go to the volcano alone, may enjoy it. There is economy in that. Eco tourism! It's not just for Cornell students. Hawaii Island, turn the adversity into opportunity. The culture needs to be revitalized just like the soil. It's all tied in. Maui has it's film festival, an international destination. We have an active volcano, also an international destination. C'mon gamers.

All ash protocols I've read are conducted annually but in dire times bi-annual treatments seem to be in order. That would mean two festivals a year. Maybe the autumnal and vernal equinox.

[ohiagrrl]

A basic tenet of oral Native American cultures is that if there is a poison(in the natural world), the cure is often within ten feet of you, you just have to look for it. For those of you willing to consider oral tradition and myth to be a valid part of human knowledge and clues to a better future, read below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Ame...thnobotany

https://www.na.fs.fed.us/fire_poster/nativeamer.htm


Here is a very interesting article from the College of Tropical Agriculture (HI) I found when looking for Native American use of Biochar, citing many positive benefits and breakdown of carbon stabilized plant matter as soil amendments, but saying that much more research is needed. I get two different materials from my Ohia burns, the charcoals and the fine white powdery ash which have entirely different properties.

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/SCM-30.pdf

"....areas high in naturally occurring biochar, such as the North American Prairie (west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains), are some of the
most fertile soils in the world. Historical use of biochar dates back at least 2000 years...."

Environmental impact:
"Biochar can be a simple yet powerful tool to combat climate change. As organic materials decay, greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane (which is 21
times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2), are released into the atmosphere. By charring the organic material, much of the carbon becomes “fixed” into a more
stable form, and when the resulting biochar is applied to soils, the carbon is effectively sequestered (Liang et al. 2008). It is estimated that use of this method to “tie up” carbon has the potential to reduce current global carbon emissions by as much as 10 percent (Woolf et al. 2010)...."

CTAHR. Why not take these experiments into forests and do some good while searching for the empirical truths? Love the poetry of the natural world.

[Jimbo2017]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ohiagrrl

Letter to Jimbo,

".... if you want to do scientific investigation, why not try just Phosphorous heavy fertilizer on some trees, and ash on others? Test it like a scientist would (and add a control ."

Whether you are a grad student of a professor, I realize this suggestion was friendly and I turned around and got high up on my maka maka. Apologies...

---

No worries. I just thought the whole basics of empirical research was missing from your plan. I am just an undergrad, but thanks for thinking I am Dr. Friday!

Mauka Hilo-side

[ohiagrrl]

LOL! Darn all that intrigue, down the drain. Probably for the best you aren't JBF. My goal is not to alienate despite evidence otherwise. But Jimbo, the empirical element IS missing, which is why I tried courting key University members early on, (then later beleaguering, and again courting) these folks who could most efficiently create those kinds of experiments. Any combination of carrot and stick seems to leave them unimpressed however.

Those in the sciences have the privilege of time to carry out regimented types of investigations and the ability to access resources, (public lands and money, grad student labor, lab assistants, field tests...) that many of us don't, which is why I feel it is their job to investigate in the manner that defines them. If they don't feel the same, perhaps a small percentage of those resources could be shared with the community for vital experiments in times of true crisis.

Again, I am not trying to re-invent the wheel. Simply pointing out that the assumption that fire has to be 'site specific' for a forest to benefit from burned material may be faulty. As well I provided a solid theory to illustrate how 'material specific' fire products when applied as fertilizer might prove to have enough anti parasitic and anti fungal properties all by themselves (minus the heat of fire) to kill forest blights, (besides providing a known source of nutrition). These are all just "Mr Potato Head" features on some 'givens' and could prove useful in heavily populated forest lands where controlled burns of actual forest land isn't practical. Luckily residents seem more receptive than scientists. These trees take almost a millennium to reach full maturity but under this new threat can perish in a matter of weeks. I feel obliged to compete with this disaster full bore in the only manner which I can currently accommodate. Wish me luck and join the fight if you are so inclined. Perhaps you might share these ideas with your professors.

Any of my Ash-iers have any spare product? Spotted a new swatch of forest outside K-Town that could use a suture. I used up my last batch treating a neighbors trees. Probably need about 5lbs total. (Ohia Wood seems to reduce to about 10% it's original mass when burned.)
ohiasolutions@gmail.com

[Slow Walker]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ohiagrrl

LOL! Darn all that intrigue, down the drain. Probably for the best you aren't JBF. My goal is not to alienate despite evidence otherwise. But Jimbo, the empirical element IS missing, which is why I tried courting key University members early on, (then later beleaguering, and again courting) these folks who could most efficiently create those kinds of experiments. Any combination of carrot and stick seems to leave them unimpressed however.

Those in the sciences have the privilege of time to carry out regimented types of investigations and the ability to access resources, (public lands and money, grad student labor, lab assistants, field tests...) that many of us don't, which is why I feel it is their job to investigate in the manner that defines them. If they don't feel the same, perhaps a small percentage of those resources could be shared with the community for vital experiments in times of true crisis.

Again, I am not trying to re-invent the wheel. Simply pointing out that the assumption that fire has to be 'site specific' for a forest to benefit from burned material may be faulty. As well I provided a solid theory to illustrate how 'material specific' fire products when applied as fertilizer might prove to have enough anti parasitic and anti fungal properties all by themselves (minus the heat of fire) to kill forest blights, (besides providing a known source of nutrition). These are all just "Mr Potato Head" features on some 'givens' and could prove useful in heavily populated forest lands where controlled burns of actual forest land isn't practical. Luckily residents seem more receptive than scientists. These trees take almost a millennium to reach full maturity but under this new threat can perish in a matter of weeks. I feel obliged to compete with this disaster full bore in the only manner which I can currently accommodate. Wish me luck and join the fight if you are so inclined. Perhaps you might share these ideas with your professors.

Any of my Ash-iers have any spare product? Spotted a new swatch of forest outside K-Town that could use a suture. I used up my last batch treating a neighbors trees. Probably need about 5lbs total. (Ohia Wood seems to reduce to about 10% it's original mass when burned.)
ohiastarr@gmail.com

---

Ohia Girl,
Myself and another person went to a meeting put on by Rene Siracusa in Nanawale estates years ago about ohia dieback.
JB Friday told us at the time that he had his students digging in areas that were lava tubes to get the roots of the ohia as he thought the die back was due to drought.

After seeing the dieback way before he stated it happened we ended up leaving at the end of the meeting stating that this was a waste of gas and time.

He didnt want to hear of any other options of what it might have been the cause without telling us in his kind words that we were mistaken.

I have his statement that was given to us in small amounts as there was not enough for the crowd.

It is called Ohia Dieback in lower Puna. As of March 27,2013.

It would seem like it would be good to look at all ideas of how this disease has happened.

But I also know that so to speak getting out on a limb is not good for your retirement. Also stay safe dont poke an eye. Better to just hug the dead tree.

I understand what I just said will not have U of H jumping to help you out but sometimes a body needs to be called out.

I tried to find this pamphlet I have on the internet but could not.

It is also best not to make up your mind... but to be able change your course of thoughts.

The forest spirits do not speak to me but I hope they continue with you.