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State official
says killing diseased
Kauai banana plants
won’t work

A program that includes
pesticides and disease-free
replacement plants is urged

Officials hope tiny wasp
will ward off citrus pests

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- A state Agriculture Department official last night told Kauai's banana farmers -- who already volunteered to destroy their crops to halt the spread of the fatal banana bunchy top virus -- that he is opposed to killing the plants because it won't work and the state can't afford it.

"If we start an eradication program we're going to fail miserably and we're going to realize very quickly that it is the height of folly," Lyle Wong, plant industry administrator, told a meeting of about two dozen farmers. "I believe a major management control program is a better way to use the resources available to us," he added.

The farmers' reaction was muted but clear: They continue to believe that unless all the banana plants in the infected area of the island, including their own, are destroyed the disease can never be eradicated.

Instead of the $5.5 million program the department figured it will take to kill an estimated 3.5 million banana plants growing on the eastern half of the island, Wong proposed a $150,000-a-year control program that would include purchase of pesticides, disease-free replacement plants and public education.

Wong conceded his proposed control plan has not yet been drafted. The only part agreed on so far is to erect four signs along Kuhio Highway telling Kauai residents they can be fined $10,000 for transporting a banana plant anywhere on the island. The state Agriculture Board placed a banana quarantine on Kauai last month.

The Agriculture Department has no money for an eradication program and "is not going to lead the charge" to get any, Wong said.

One farmer responded: "If the Department of Agriculture does not go to bat for us, our chances at the Legislature are very slim."

None of the members of Kauai's legislative delegation or any members of their staffs attended last night's meeting, which was public.

Banana bunchy top virus has been on Oahu since 1986 and is now so widespread there that the state has given up efforts to control it, although some commercial banana farms exist. Another outbreak is being fought with little success near Kailua-Kona on the Big Island.

Two years ago, the first outbreak on Kauai was believed stopped by destroying all the plants in the area.

The most recent Kauai cases were discovered near Kapaa April 16. State investigators found it had spread from Hanalei on the north shore to Koloa on the south shore.

Killing all the plants in the infected area would require a staff of 80 workers full time for three-and-a-half years, the Agriculture Department estimates. It would involve an estimated 18,500 property parcels where bananas are grown either commercially or at residences.

The disease, found in banana-growing areas worldwide, stunts the growth of banana plants and eventually kills them. It is harmless to humans and the fruit from diseased plants is safe to eat.

The virus is carried by an aphid. Killing the plants would not eliminate the disease unless the aphids are killed, too, because they live on many other plants, although they do not infect them, according to the Agriculture Department.