RES 718 Draft 01 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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WHEREAS, in Hawaii, the family Myrtaceae is represented by 49 species in nine genera, including eight native species. The dominant tree of native Hawaiian forests is ' ohi' a (Metrosideros polymorpha Gaud.) and it is related to the strawberry guava and numerous introduced timber trees, including Eucalyptus species, are distant relatives; and WHEREAS, Tectococcus will not kill the strawberry guava, but it will reduce the health of the tree and its capacity for fruit production by creating unsightly galls on the leaves that house the female Tectococcus, protecting the female from assault from predators and insecticides; and WHEREAS, despite the quarantine and research, the IPIF cannot guarantee that Tectococcus is host specific to the strawberry guava outside of quarantine conditions, and only "expects" Tectococcus to: 1) be host specific, 2) to spread gradually as an infestation on the target plant reaching damaging levels within a few years at each release site, 3) reduce vitality, growth rate, and reduce fruit and seed production of the strawberry guava over a number of years, and 4) that the infestation of Tectococcus will protect the Hawaiian forests by suppressing the strawberry guava and thereby allowing the native forest to regenerate; and WHEREAS, each female Tectococcus remains enclosed in a gall throughout her life, producing up to several hundred eggs in a matrix of wax filaments, which helps the eggs and crawlers to float on the wind, and each female is parthenogenic (reproducing asexually), which increases the likelihood of producing crawlers that spread the infestation; and WHEREAS, a mass infestation of gall -bearing strawberry guava trees with lowered vitality in our forests, orchards, yards, hedges, and along our roads will be unsightly. The lowered viability of the strawberry guava trees may encourage other opportunistic insects and disease to attack the strawberry guava and may spread those opportunistic insects and disease throughout the native forest, to other horticulturally significant trees, and to the orchards of commercial guava growers and residents' personal fruit trees; and WHEREAS, the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, in its brochure, "Repelling Invaders" states that "Despite their potential usefulness, biocontrol agents are potentially hazardous", and further that "biocontrol agents introduced to control invasive blackberry also attacked the Hawaiian raspberry"; and WHEREAS, the draft Environmental Assessment indicates that many commercial crops (tomatoes and other vegetables, most fruits, coffee, protea and orchids) grown on Hawaii Island that are constantly attacked by other species of scale have not been tested to determine whether Tectococcus will preferentially choose to eat those plants over the strawberry guava; and WHEREAS, the draft Environmental Assessment does not indicate whether Tectococcus can or may hybridize with other scale species and create a "super -scale" capable of eating many of our agricultural crops; and WHEREAS, despite improved research, the beliefs and expectations of the IPIF cannot be guaranteed, and the IPIF states in its publication, Biological control of weeds in Hawai `i: Page 2 of 4