Myrtle rust.

This introduced pathogen has enormous potential to change the Australian landscape.

First detected in NSW in 2010 and now very rapidly getting a foot-hold in a continuous band all the way down coastal Queensland and New South Wales, and who knows how far inland, this rust fungus has enormous potential for damage, to crops, gardens and the natural environment.

http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/4790_19788.htm

It affects many plants in the family Myrtaceae, which is Australia’s most dominant plant family, to which the eucalypts, lilly-pillies, tea-trees, bottlebrushes and many others belong.

It badly debilitates them and kills some. Where it affects the dominant trees, it has the potential to drastically change whole ecosystems with enormous consequences for all other plants, birds and animals.

It’s full potential is yet unknown, but there is no doubt that it is here to stay and is uncontainable.

It really does have the potential to be right up there with our worst weeds, feral animals and other stuff-arounds of the natural environment:: rubbervine, lantana, cane toads, cats, foxes, oil spills, changed fire regimes, etc.

There is only one environmental impact that it is not likely to compete with – land-clearing over the last hundred or so years.

Only time will tell how bad it gets.

Your thoughts…..

Yes aware of it and fear it, it would wipe out my garden.
I have re introduced scaly breasted and rainbows in big numbers.
Over 30 bottle bush 6 meters high and than number from 1 to 3 and growing.
Lily pillys too but young yet.
Natives of both species are endemic around here so once here no stopping it.
My trees are high flowering weeping type and impossible to save.
Ludwig just as my thread about the dangers of slack boarder control was meant to be a warning,your post confirms how much danger we can be placed in.
Any idea how this came here..
We need to consider as an act of terrorism, or massive industrial sabotage we are at risk.

Belly, this thread does indeed tie right into yours.

We need tight border protection against the introduction of all manner of feral organisms. We need to be very strict about fungal pathogens. However, they are notoriously hard to deal with.

This fungus is native to South America. I don’t know how it got here. It could well have just come in as spores on someone’s clothing, which would be practically impossible for any border protection methodology to prevent.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying as hard as we can to stop such horrible blights from entering the country.

I think we’ve also got a problem with early detection and eradication.

When citrus canker popped up in Emerald a few years ago, it was a huge deal, with quarantined properties and maximised effort to eradicate it, including the destruction of thousands of trees, at huge cost to all Emerald citrus growers.

But I nothing of the sort happened with myrtle rust, as far as I know.

This is truly extraordinary.

NO ONE GIVES A HOOT!! !! !! !!

The introduction and now widespread establishment of myrtle rust is of major concern, with potentially enormous consequences…..

....and it draws about as much response as a dead dingo’s dick in the middle of the Tanami Desert!!

Pfpfpfpfffffff!!

Ludwig such is life.
I too have been surprised how little interest is shown in some threads that should be of great interest.
We could start threads on dole bludging or boat people climate change and much more and get big posting numbers.
I see a change in human behavior,we are locked in our personal battles and uninterested in the big picture.
Looking good is more important to some than thinking about life its self.
We seem content to let others make our choices then be bitter at the results.
Even in growing our gardens we see easy grown no maitenece plants not natives.
And few grow food.
My trees cover a host of plants under them that will die if they do.
Bees already struggling to survive,my visiting birds will no longer be seen.
A day approaches that will put environmental protection back in its place, mainstream.

I agree Ludwig, there is too little notice taken of agricultural risks.
I think that is because the vast majority of people have been for two
or three generations disconnected from the land.

That situation may improve in the future as people start growing more
of their own food. Even if it is only to supplement what they buy at
the supermarket. Actually I have noticed a significant growth in the
number of traders and buyers at the Thursday market held in the
shopping centre. The greengrocer (now there is a word from the past)
had a crowd around his stand, so much so that they were two and three deep.
He has his farm not more than about 15km from the centre.

So a change is happening, maybe slowly, but it is happening.