2017-02-17 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes — February 13, 2017 JB: Sure and one of the things we were talking about just today is you could get multiple diseases in a tree — but what this is really going on — this is a new disease that is particularly virulent — one of the things that shocked us when we first were seeing this in 2013 — is these beautiful trees were going down. If you go in Puna — you know the Puna forest — you go there and because it's all on lava you can have one big beautiful tree and Tots of scrawny ones that are on the rock. But the big trees were going down — so it's not a stress response — drought response, it's a pretty virulent disease that is going to take down even the healthiest trees — but certainly there are — say a tree that's already been compromised by root rot will probably go down a lot faster than this. TN: What are you using when you say you inoculate the trees? JB: The study that we just started up on Stainback — we inoculated the trees, a culture of the fungus and with the beetle sawdust. Our understanding is this windblown beetle sawdust if it hits a wound will cause disease — well we actually went and put it in — so what we're gonna do there is in a few months cut the trees — cut 'em up and we see the fungus growing in the tree — are we actually seeing that? And we're not bringing stuff into an area where it isn't already — we're just moving it from one tree to another that's in the area. That was one thing we hesitated first because it's not a pure experiment cause that tree could be infected already — but the point is by cutting up the tree you're able to see how the fungus was growing in the tree. TN: Have you found any other solution that would be an anti -fungal solution? JB: Vascular wilt fungi usually are not controlled by fungicides or things — the best that you can do with other diseases of this class are injecting the tree with the fungicide to stop the growth of the fungus — so if any of you have, are familiar with the North Eastern United States, the Dutch Elm disease is a huge problem in the North East killing many thousands of elms through the forest and ornamental elms. So valuable ornamental trees get injections of fungicide every two years and the arborist comes, drills holes, pumps it through with fungicide — it stops the progress of the disease — but once you're at that point the tree's on life support and it costs money every year, but if it's your one beautiful tree in front of your town hall — the county arborist will do that. It's entirely possible that could work here — I've talked with some folks from Arbor Jet last week about the possibility, but that is again something else we got to work out the technology — just because it works for elm trees doesn't mean it's gonna work for ohia. TN: Have you looked for native knowledge that know about these fungus and what could possibly be an anti -fungal solution? 17