06-03-2015, 05:52 AM
Jmo, the coqui came to Puna when Walmart and its garden section came. The fire ants came with the flower nurseries for decades. The spreading of these ants to nearby palm, mango, and coconut trees was inevitable. The Ohia fungus took a few things to happen before it mutated. Yams, taro, kava could carry this disease first. Then the soil filled with these fungus spores could get pushed or dozed near and around the sensitive Ohia stands.
I use to see a common practice by the kapoho papaya farmers back in the day. Some would plant things like sweet patato yams, tomatoes, taro,ect, in their pushed burms around the papaya farms. Now its hard"not impossible" to grow any of these plants like (tomatoes, yams, taro, kava, or Ohia) in this area of Puna without seeing some sort of fungus or death wilt.
P.S. I still know where one of the first possible dead Ohia stumps sits from this disease? its been at least 10-12 years now, Maybe the soil or stump could still be sampled for various reasons?
I use to see a common practice by the kapoho papaya farmers back in the day. Some would plant things like sweet patato yams, tomatoes, taro,ect, in their pushed burms around the papaya farms. Now its hard"not impossible" to grow any of these plants like (tomatoes, yams, taro, kava, or Ohia) in this area of Puna without seeing some sort of fungus or death wilt.
P.S. I still know where one of the first possible dead Ohia stumps sits from this disease? its been at least 10-12 years now, Maybe the soil or stump could still be sampled for various reasons?