|
Tectococcus
|
05-27-2013, 03:25 PM
I'm searching google and am only finding articles from 2010 saying that the release of this insect is planned. Has the insect been released yet and if so has it been effective in slowing the growth of strawberry guava? That stuff makes bindweed look like cotton candy!
05-28-2013, 01:17 AM
I vaguely remember that it had been released. I love my strawberry guava and read it hoping that my trees were not affected. I am killing the ones that are choking off any Ohia, but other than that, it is a great screen and it fruits.
05-28-2013, 01:45 AM
I think I am wrong. It was being studied up in volcano on a test patch, and I think still is... City council passed a resolution banning it's release so I dont think it was released. But after reading all this, I am not extremely worried! I dont even want this thing to be tested up in volcano. Who is funding it, and how do we get the fund cut off? I think these brazilian bugs should be completely banned here.
05-28-2013, 01:57 AM
Next time I will research more prior to posting. IN spite of the City Council's resolution, and in spite of petition signed by more than 6,000 Big Island residents, the EPA started releasing the insects in 2011. IN July 2012 there is a report written by them that they have now documented the "first sustainable" evidence of "gall" on the strawberry guava and a sustainable population of the brazilian insects have now been documented up in volcano. What a friggin enviromental disaster this is going to be. I just hope the little fire ants in the trees, kill these biocontrol insects. This is truely frightening.
05-28-2013, 02:25 AM
Yes, this will be a "disaster" once the insects mutate and start eating the ohia.
Like climate change, it will be too late to do anything about it. I'm sure Monsanto will come up with something.
05-28-2013, 03:43 AM
OK, am over my 5 post limit, so this is it for today, but it wont be the bugs that eat the OHia. It will be the starving pigs who can no longer eat the waiawi. Also, what about all the people who eat those pigs regularly? I think this ridiculous insect could really impact our food independence- whether gleaned by invasives or not. Right now, we have a "workable" ecosystem. It is going to be decimated by this bug.
05-28-2013, 04:33 AM
Julie, It seems you may be reading a lot of Syd Singers info.... I was at many of the meeting he was at, and his take away was WAY different than most of the attendees...and he does have a following, along with his coqui sanctuary & such....
The main problem with Strawberry guava is that it has been increasing exponentially over the last century, and has gone fairly unchecked by anything...so 80 years ago there was so little of it that people fondly remember finding, 50 years ago it was one of those things you could find here & there, 20 years ago it was a common plant about, now it has developed the problem of choking out native plants in forest reserves & other "high quality" vegetation areas. For over 20 years there have been calls for work crews to assist in the control of these plants in the native areas, but the control efforts could not even keep up with the reproduction rate (If more concerned people had gotten active, maybe the growth would not have been as drastic, but I was at some of the later control workdays & there were not enough volunteers to do much more than maintain a small area... I also remember when the coqui & LFA were new & unique,just a few years ago, and there was a call to control, and how few people even showed up the the info meetings, much less the control efforts...& who was stating that these organisms should be allowed to stay... Scientifically studied biocontrol has been successful on this island for quite a while (and no, the mongoose & cane toad were NOT scientific biocontrol, they were brought in by some cane growers as a whim...no research.... scientific research into biocontrol looks first at 'why not'.... One of the more interesting papers out on this is HOW a very few people have manipulated this one control, when all about there have been other biological controls uses, with no where near the public concern... the WHY is fairly interesting! http://pus.sagepub.com/content/22/2/203.abstract The Strawberry guava is from Brazil, and so the natural control was looked at from the native country.... E. ovatus has been studied for a fairly long time for this purpose: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007...3-3#page-1 http://www.invasive.org/publications/xsy...8pg659.pdf This link is the Hawaii Conservation publication on this: http://hawaiiconservation.org/resources/...erry_guava edited cause I can not type!
05-28-2013, 06:12 AM
It seems like they did a ton of research over 10 years to confirm that this insect does not cross over to other plants. I agree that anything is possible, but as it stands now, the strawberry guava seems to be killing Hawaii's native jungles. I'm sure however that there are people out there who are very concerned about protecting kudzu and tammy reeds. Sounds like the decision has been made and there is no turning back.
05-28-2013, 07:27 AM
I just posted elsewhere that I had recently spoken with J.B. Friday of UH. I am pretty sure that he said he thought the scale insect had not been released yet. That seemed strange since I also remember seeing that the go ahead for release had been given back in November of 2011. They were gong to release them in the Ola'a forest reserve. Funny, you would think he would know. However I have just spent the last hour searching online for references to the actual release and have found none yet. That doesn't mean it hasn't been released but since most of what most of us claim to know comes from the internet it is significant. I have a phone message and an email in to DR Friday. My experience with him is that he is very conscientious and will research the answer and get back to me.
It has often been stated that those supporting such bio-controls are in it for some form of profit or job security. I find this laughable. In the same paragraph those making the suggestion immediately suggest letting various local groups "solve" the problem by pursuing their favorite hobby, for example letting hunters solve the problem of invasive deer. Yeah, right. It was (some) hunters who brought the deer. I find the arguments that the deer and the guava represent food sources to be an insult to our collective intelligence. Vastly more food could be had without the massive fruit fly infestations that untold tons of rotting guava support. If you research what farmers can do to combat fruit flies the first thing is to clean up any fallen fruits and vegetables. Ha, ha! Joke's on the farmers! They are surrounded by thousands of acres of impenetrable guava forest that no one is ever going to get through while the guava lives. Nor is anyone going in there to harvest the vast majority of the fruit. If a human does try to penetrate such a thicket they find themselves a few feet off the ground suspended half way between the fruit still on the tree and the fruit that has fallen on the ground, rotting. All the while they are inhaling fruit flies. Well, THAT'S some protein at least. Anyway 99% of this wonderful food source goes uneaten. If it were really about food the hunters and gatherers should steal directly from the farmers and leave out the pigs, deer, and guava. Even with such losses the farmers would probably still come out ahead. Either way someone eats for free at the farmer's expense. In those parts of the world where wood is a valuable commodity such that people are motivated to go into the forest and work hard, the result is usually the same. Deforestation. I do not advocate encouraging the general public to go into the forest with chain saws. There seem to be two camps here, those that side with the trained biologists and those that side with Syd "Save the Coqui" Singer. I'm going to let everyone guess where I place my faith. |
|
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »
|
