Anyone in volcano see the guava infected yet?

[unknownjulie]

This is so vitally important that I wanted to post it in "general", rather than "farm and garden". I was just reading about that horrible brazilian insect they are releasing up in volcano to kill the waiawi. Has anyone seen any results up there yet? I just cannot imagine the disastrous, unintended consequences.

[JungleWahine]

I personally have not seen any effects on the waiawe at all. But even though I have a Volcano street address, I live down the hill in Glenwood. So it may be different in town. I was worried about this as well since my kids love waiawe jelly and although it may be a "junk" plant, you can't beat free food.

[MarkP]

First of all, I spoke with JB Friday of the Dept of Forestry last month. He said he doesn't think it has been released yet. Second, if you don't notice anything that might also be because the scale, even if released, is following the course of the vast majority of bio-controls released since the 70s. It is quietly working without making a big splash, exactly as intended. What pray tell are you imagining is going to happen? Please don't refer to the example of the mongooses being introduced to control rats. If you do I will be compelled to ask you whether you take advantage of modern medicine since I will have to assume that you believe no progress has been made in science since the 1800s when civil war surgeons killed as many as they saved by not cleaning their instruments between patients.

[JungleWahine]

Not sure what I should be looking for Mark, but I assumed that the fruit would start disappearing first. Every time the wind blows, some of those guava hit the ground and plant themselves. So that's what I was looking for, not the trees to spontaneously combust or something, lol. I just wish they would worry about the plants, that to me at least, are much worse. Bump into a waiawi, you end up with a piece of edible fruit falling. Bump into himalayan raspberry, and you are picking thorns out of yourself for a half hour. *shrugs*

[Carey]

JungleWahine, T. ovacus is a leaf gall, so the effected areas will show galls on the leaves (looking like a smaller version of the NOT RELATED galls on most non-native Hibiscus leaves - again these are not at all related - I am only mentioning them for a comparison)

The gall will effect the vigor of the plant, but does not directly effect the fruit, over than the potential of reducing the yield per tree, and most likely will not kill any of the trees here, only reduce the total number of fruit on an effected tree...and potentially slowing the increasing population

From 'Strawberry Guava (Psidium cattleianum) – Prospects for Biological Control' by C. WIKLER1, J. H. PEDROSA-MACEDO, M. D. VITORINO, M. G. CAXAMBÚ, and C. W. SMITH
"LEAF GALL - Tectococcus ovatus (Homoptera, Eriococcidae)
The gall is convex oval on one side of the leaf, and acuminate oval on the other. The
acuminate portion is generally on the upper side of the leaf whether or not that is the abaxial
surface. Occasionally galls may have acuminate or convex forms on both sides of the
leaf. The size of the galls is very variable, depending on the developmental stage and the
sex of the insect, those containing adult males are narrower and more acuminate than
females. The maximum diameter of the gall varies from 0,95 - 7.9 mm on the acuminate
side and 1,55-7,0 mm on the convex side. The depth of the galls from the acuminate tip
to the top of the convex portion varied from 1,80-8,5 mm. The galls are the same colour
as the leaf though the tips are frequently red (Vitorino, 1998)."

ADDED FOR DAYNA, this link is the abstract for a paper that has studied the potential of T. ovatus crossing over to common guava, of you need access to the full paper, I can send you the pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007...3-3#page-1
This quote from the abstract may help you out:

"In total, 57 plant species representing 21 families were included in the host range tests. First instar nymphs of Tectococcus ovatus Hempel fed on two closely related guava species, Brazilian guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum O. Berg), and Costa Rican guava (Psidium guineense Sw.). However, none of the nymphs completed their development on these two non-target species"

[PaulW]

I can imagine the disastrous, unintended consequences: none.

What I also can imagine is the native plants getting a small reprieve from this aggressive, invasive, guava weed.

It's a good thing they're keeping this quiet or we may get some unnecessary self-immolations.

[Rob Tucker]

I'm hoping the wasp helps at least. If it is effective I would expect it to take a couple generations to make a dent in the problem.

[unknownjulie]

I will consider it a personal disaster to see the sickened trees all over the place. I will also consider it a personal disaster to have half of the trees on my property infected, and thus creating sick looking trees- that I will have to pay for their removal or expend huge amounts of manpower erradicating. When the trees are infected, they have yellow spots on the leaves and look sick, from the photos I've seen from Brazil. I like to have healthy forests on my property. I do not like that the govt decided to do this, and it will have unfortunate personal consequences for many of us. Do you want to be driving up to volcano through a forest that looks sick? They say that it wont kill the trees, which I think is even worse. Just leave sick looking trees for all of us to have to deal with.

[Rob Tucker]

Healthy Hawaiian forests do not have guava in them. The guava is choking off all the native trees.

[bluesboy]

yep, albizia and guava have no place in hawaii. no matter how 'pretty' or 'healthy' you perceive them to be.