Project Overview
Decline of Casuarina equisetifolia: A Loss to Pacific Island Agroforestry
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Additional Plants: trees, ornamentals
Practices
- Crop Production: windbreaks
- Education and Training: technical assistance, decision support system, extension, focus group, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
- Pest Management: disease vectors, field monitoring/scouting, genetic resistance, integrated pest management, prevention, sanitation
- Sustainable Communities: public participation, sustainability measures
Abstract:
Ironwood trees (Casuarina equisetifolia) on the island of Guam began dying in 2002. By 2005, Ironwood tree decline (IWTD) was widespread and undiagnosed. With funding from Western SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) in 2008, a research program commenced with preparations for a five-day IWTD conference in 2009. Research of conference attendees and others since then established that a complex of abiotic and biotic factors are involved in IWTD. Abiotic factors include host genetics, site environment and management practices. Biotic factors include Ganoderma wood rot, termites and xylem-residing bacteria Ralstonia solanacearum, Klebsiella oxytoca and K. variicola.
Project objectives:
Objective 1: Develop a diagnostic key for all known injury, signs and symptoms that occur on Ironwood worldwide. Consultation: Five day meeting on Guam to finalize survey procedures and diagnostic key.
Objective 2: Determine the amount of change in Guam’s Ironwood population from 2002 to the present.
Objective 3: Categorize tree damage according to injury, signs and symptoms and record percent of each occurrence.
Objective 4: To inform the public of the survey finding and to form an Ironwood Tree Decline Committee.
Objective 5: Identify a source of seeds from superior Ironwood trees that the Guam Department of Agriculture can use in their give-away program.
Objective 6: Based an analysis of the data collected in Objectives 1-3 a conclusion will be drawn as to the cause or causes for ironwood decline.
Objective 7: Drawing from the results of objective 6 and the knowledge and expertise of others, the Ironwood Tree Decline Committee will develop management strategies for Ironwood decline and host a three half-day Ironwood tree workshops: one for government agency employees and two for farmers and the general public.
