Ohia Ash shown to Improve Ohia Health

[geochem]

Maybe to offer a little balance in the JBF-bashing going on, in the early days of the recognition of the ROD, surveys done on the locations where ohia were going down indicated that much of the die-off was occurring along the Kilauea rift zone where there were recognized surface fractures and ground cracks. JB and others who had the data suspected that it could be associated with any number of processes that might be occurring at those locations ranging from ground movement along the fractures causing stresses on the root systems, or possibly thermal or carbon dioxide emissions from the fractures could be responsible. Hence their early interest in the root systems. They were, and continue to, follow good scientific protocols: systematically gather and interpret observational data, form a hypothesis, and develop new observational data to test and/or disprove/modify that hypothesis. Going off in twenty different directions based on uncertain/conflicting/undocumented anecdotal claims isn't good science and, when you have limited time and limited resources as most University researchers do, it isn't productive.

And your glowing opinion of folk-medicine notwithstanding, although some have been shown to have a biochemical basis in reality, most were unproductive if not counterproductive... If bitten by a snake, I'd much prefer anti-venom to shamanism any day.