Cucumber mosaic virus

[Señor Chuggs]

Has anyone ever seen cucumber mosaic virus on a kava plant? Looks like some nasty stuff from pictures I've seen. Does anyone know if it would be possible to harvest infected kava if it was caught fast enough?
According to this post, it's caused damage in Hawaii.

How might farmers prevent 1000+ acre kava operations from allowing this virus to spread? This would be devastating.

 

[Travis]

How bout that kava guys!
Bula!

 

[kasa_balavu]

Has anyone ever seen cucumber mosaic virus on a kava plant? Looks like some nasty stuff from pictures I've seen. Does anyone know if it would be possible to harvest infected kava if it was caught fast enough?

Kava dieback disease is nasty and thought to primarily be caused by CMV. Yes you can harvest kava when you first see signs of CMV in the leaves if the kava is mature.
Kava plants that are well cared for are able to resist CMV. I've noticed it really only rears its ugly head when there are drought conditions and the kava plants are already struggling.

 

[kastom_lif]

Just wanted to add two cents to the debate...

I've looked at properties on the BI and considered moving there. There was one single parcel in a kava-friendly climate that was 80 contiguous acres. That's a big chunk. Not even in a lava zone or anywhere in Puna. Get schmall kine vog, but good soil, plenty rain. Even could have hooked up county utilities. No I didn't go for it. But I thought long and hard.

Anyway, Chris has also been involved in forestry. You cut timber, you get to know landowners. It wouldn't be uncommon to lease growing rights or just have a casual agreement to grow kava on other people's land. And the last thing you want to do is piss off your landlord by encouraging haoles from the Internet to go tresspassing on your leased land.

So today I read that Doug wants to start "Tanoa Kava Talk Forums" to empower rural kava farmers. I'd just like to point out that kava on the BI is ALSO grown by rural farmers.

 

[Señor Chuggs]

Kava dieback disease is nasty and thought to primarily be caused by CMV. Yes you can harvest kava when you first see signs of CMV in the leaves if the kava is mature.
Kava plants that are well cared are able to resist CMV. I've noticed it really only rears its ugly head when there are drought conditions and the kava plants are already struggling.

Does it tend to spread quickly? If so, I could imagine something like this causing huge damage in an isolated island ecosystem.

 

[kasa_balavu]

Does it tend to spread quickly? If so, I could imagine something like this causing huge damage in an isolated island ecosystem.

I've never considered it a serious threat, and when I was involved in kava farming we grew it much more densely than how Chris grows his kava. The closer you get to monoculture, the greater the risk that pests and diseases pose. I certainly wouldn't see it (or any kava disease/pest) being a serious threat when growing kava in the manner that Chris does.

Land in the Pacific Islands is rarely homogeneous. There aren't many endless flat fields of <whatever crop> like you might have on continents. You have slopes, you have hills and gullies, rocky areas, and you have (very little) flat land. You can have the most vibrant, lush kava growing at the bottom of a gully and then have thin, scraggly plants struggling just ten meters away.

Growers may lose a few kava plants to CMV/dieback, but I've never heard of entire crops being wiped out.

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Lets all remember that this thread is about CMV. I know a lot about this virus. It does cause death to most all kava plants that get it. There are some plants that have it and yet it has not spread to all the stalks, you can still take cuttings from the infected plant, there is a field test that can be done to a stalk to see if it has CMV. They do this a lot in Fiji to make sure they get clean cuttings. We don't do it here in Hawaii because the CMV is not as bad, I have only seen it once in the last few years. This is another reason that I plant kava the way I do, I do not plant football fields of it, I plant among the natural area. If I cut or clear the land then I have to do weeding and things like that.

CMV is almost always fatal for young kava plants and will spread very quickly if the kava plants are close together. CMV is less of a threat to older healthy kava plants but even an old healthy kava can get it and die from it. In Hawaii we have a grass called Hono Hono grass and this grass can get the CMV and then if a bug bites the grass and then the kava this is how the CMV is transmitted.
Here is a picture and some information on CMV.

This stuff was done by my good friend Dr. Scot Nelson, a plant pathologist with UH. I hope this answers all your questions, if not let me know if you have any questions about the CMV. Aloha.

Chris

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Just wanted to add two cents to the debate...

I've looked at properties on the BI and considered moving there. There was one single parcel in a kava-friendly climate that was 80 contiguous acres. That's a big chunk. Not even in a lava zone or anywhere in Puna. Get schmall kine vog, but good soil, plenty rain. Even could have hooked up county utilities. No I didn't go for it. But I thought long and hard.

Anyway, Chris has also been involved in forestry. You cut timber, you get to know landowners. It wouldn't be uncommon to lease growing rights or just have a casual agreement to grow kava on other people's land. And the last thing you want to do is piss off your landlord by encouraging haoles from the Internet to go tresspassing on your leased land.

So today I read that Doug wants to start "Tanoa Kava Talk Forums" to empower rural kava farmers. I'd just like to point out that kava on the BI is ALSO grown by rural farmers.

Thanks for your support and understanding @kastom_lif . I did in fact do a lot of logging and I had over 13,000 acres under lease for that. I still lease a lot of that land but all of the land I have growing kava on is mostly on the cheap land. My farm in Paauilo is the most expensive piece of land. You are right that the land owner does not like too many people on his land. This is why I like to let people come to my farm here at my house. If you really want to come to Hawaii and grow some kava let me know, I will help you and provide you with kava cuttings. Aloha.

Chris

Edit: @kastom_lif here is a video of some of the logging I did, I am in the skid steer and my workers are helping me, you will see a lot of land.---https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQY47aeBN28

 

[kastom_lif]

Those trees were obviously imported from Vanuatu

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Those trees were obviously imported from Vanuatu

And I thought I destroyed the import records of that. What am I going to do now? I hope that someone does not find out about this and then report it to the world. Did you know what they call the Monkey Pod trees in Vanuatu???? I think they call it tudei, I check and get back with you tumorrow.
No but really I am only joking. Aloha.

Chris

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

How might farmers prevent 1000+ acre kava operations from allowing this virus to spread? This would be devastating.

@Señor Chuggs With great skill and brains. I know what the vectors are and I know how to make sure I don't have those vectors, I also do other things but I don't want to give my secrets, some how there might be some kind of import records of it, oops I mean records and it might fall into the wrong hands and then another huge controversy starts up. Lets just say I know what I am doing when it comes to growing kava.

Chris

 

[kastom_lif]

Monkeypod trees in Vanuatu (ren tri, saman) may have been imported from Hawaii, ironically enough! Like in most of the Pacific, they're an invasive species.

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Has anyone ever seen cucumber mosaic virus on a kava plant? Looks like some nasty stuff from pictures I've seen. Does anyone know if it would be possible to harvest infected kava if it was caught fast enough?
According to this post, it's caused damage in Hawaii.

How might farmers prevent 1000+ acre kava operations from allowing this virus to spread? This would be devastating.

As I mentioned vector control is very important with this kind of virus. Since it is a vector borne disease, if we control the vector or we make sure the vector does not have the CMV then the kava will have considerable less chance of getting CMV. There is a grass here in Hawaii and it is one of the things that can get, carry and transmit CMV when bitten by the vector bug. This grass is called Hono Hono grass here in Hawaii. If there is none of that grass in your field then the vectors will have a much harder time getting infected with CMV and then transmitting it to the kava.
This is only one example of some of the steps I take to ensure I have healthy kava.

Chris
This is a picture of the Hono Hono grass

 

[kasa_balavu]

This is a picture of the Hono Hono grass
View attachment 8177

I think we have the same grass here in Fiji, though I don't know what it's called. Is it particularly difficult to kill? The one I'm thinking of continues to grow even after being cut down. You weed a whole lot of it put it in a large pile. Then a month later, you walk by and notice that its still growing just fine. You lift up the pile of green grass to find it's not attached to the ground. No roots. Magic.
Does that sound like Hono hono to you?

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

I think we have the same grass here in Fiji, though I don't know what it's called. Is it particularly difficult to kill? The one I'm thinking of continues to grow even after being cut down. You weed a whole lot of it put it in a large pile. Then a month later, you walk by and notice that its still growing just fine. You lift up the pile of green grass to find it's not attached to the ground. No roots. Magic.
Does that sound like Hono hono to you?

Yes it does sound like the Hono Hono grass. What I do is I pull it all up and put it in a pile and then I put Iron roofing over it, it will die after 3 or 4 weeks and then I mix it in with my compost. Once you get rid of it, it stays away. One of my farms that has a lot of mac nut trees, grows the kava very well, the mac nut shells provide compost and the shells and leaves make it hard for grass to grow, the kava loves it under the mac nut trees. I have always said to work with the forest when you plant kava. Aloha.

Chris

 

[Deleted User01]

Wow, what a wealth of information on Kava growing. I thought you were doing sub-plots because of the scarcity and expense of land. But now it seems like a brilliant way to keep disease from spreading and infecting all of your crop. Great post!

@Señor Chuggs, I guess the short answer to the question about how to keep the virus from spreading is this, "Don't plant them so close to each other". Then harvest the minute you see the blight and sterilize all tools used in the harvesting procedure. If you are doing a non-organic farm, the other answer would be to "spray the fudge" out of them but nobody likes that solution.

I grow and recently finished my cuke harvest (along with tomatores, peppers, squash, etc). The cuke leaves always get splotches that kill them but I still get a reasonable amount of fruit. Not sure what gets into the leaves but it never fails and it always looks bad. Maybe it's just the hot weather but I never spray and I only use organic fertilizer. Horse Manure Alert! You can't hardly use that anymore because the straw they eat can be laced with herbicide. A friend of mine found that out the hard way. And it's a bitch getting rid of all the contaminated dirt and replanting.

 

[Deleted User01]

@Gourmet Hawaiian Kava, I'm going to throw this out there for grins and giggles. My brothers, sisters and I own about 40 acres in the Harlingen Texas that is leased out to a cotton farmer. There are other plots owned by our cousins and they are leased out too. The leasing lets us avoid property taxes since it is Ag Use. This city is maybe 30 files from the Gulf of Mexico but the weather in the summer is 93-99 degrees and the winters are mild. There is no shade on these plots. I imagine my backyard has more shade and the ornamental kava I have in a big black pot is in decent shape and has a tendency to spread into the the ground. Do you think kava could be grown in Harlingen Texas?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

@Gourmet Hawaiian Kava, I'm going to throw this out there for grins and giggles. My brothers, sisters and I own about 40 acres in the Harlingen Texas that is leased out to a cotton farmer. There are other plots owned by our cousins and they are leased out too. The leasing lets us avoid property taxes since it is Ag Use. This city is maybe 30 files from the Gulf of Mexico but the weather in the summer is 93-99 degrees and the winters are mild. There is no shade on these plots. I imagine my backyard has more shade and the ornamental kava I have in a big black pot is in decent shape and has a tendency to spread into the the ground. Do you think kava could be grown in Harlingen Texas?

If this site is correct, it might be possible (temperature-wise) but you would need to supply a lot of shade, moisture, daily attentiveness and eventually a modified soil. That's what I gather, so far, from growing in a similar climate. Also, Alia recently told me the size/hardiness of the original cutting has an effect on the likelihood of successful sprouting.

 

[Deleted User01]

Shakas, that's the correct site. Like San Antonio, the temps are a little higher this year by 2 or 3 degrees. But it's deadly. Everything in my backyard is giving up the ghost and I have to water daily which is annoying as hell. I am worried about the shade part. Anyway, after listening to my uncles and aunts complain about how tough farming is, I wouldn't attempt it myself. But if someone wanted to try it .....