2017-02-17 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

Home

Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes — February 13, 2017 JB: Sure. Thank you. KD: For us out in the country — a lot of people make fence posts with these ohias — enlighten me — is it OK? Is it not OK? JB: It comes down to moving — so this fungus is not a wood rot fungus — so it doesn't compromise the structural integrity of the wood — but moving wood around — so I would say use it where it is. Like if you've got dying trees in Hawaiian Acres and you want to build a fence in Hawaiian Acres and Orchidland — fine. But I wouldn't say cut fence posts in Hawaiian Acres and bring them up to Paauilo, bring 'em to Waimea — I would strongly suggest not doing that. KD: So if it's generally in that area it's not a problem. JB: I don't think it's a problem 'cause you're not moving it from where it is. If it is where it is then it is, you know, and likewise, if you cut fence posts in Kohala and, and you make a fence in Kohala — we haven't seen any disease up there anywhere. KD: OK. Thank you. JB: One of the other things that we're starting to look at is, Are there treatments for logs? The value of some of these posts that are done for architectural use are a lot, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of dollars that might be something that we could actually treat, but, again, ohia is not the same as oak and, and how the wood science works is something we gotta work out. DY: If you burn the wood, it's OK. But if you were to take that log from Puna to Kohala — that's not too good. JB: That's my recommendation. At that point, you're likely bringing beetles that are already in the log who are going to fly out — the beetles — and especially if you're like my father-in-law used to buy all his wood by the log length and he'd cut it up in his drive with his chain saw then you're blowing the infected dust out. So burning it will certainly kill it and it's a fine way to use it. I was reminded by the fire chief to say burn in a fireplace or something — not just light piles of brush on fire. I mentioned the beetles — we've got a guy — an entomologist on since February — he's done a lot of trapping to figure out what kind of beetles there are in both the ohia and in the ohia forest. They're all one species — a non-native species of ambrosia — the wood boring beetles that you see, it turns out about 10% of them. When you squash them and run them through the DNA analysis — they have the fungus on them. It's not that they're collecting 'em it's just 19