Oh! Great, What side can I be on? Kidding.

Belly: Any idea how this came here?

Environmental Scientists have no Idea how it got to Australia. My next door neighbour, but one, is an Environmental Scientist & the native plants in his garden suddenly became riddled with it. He says they don't know how or where it came from. There is a debate as to how it is carried, wind or birds, but they are not sure as yet or as to which birds do the carrying & it also appears to be seasonal (wind & migrating birds).

They are doing a DNA test to identify the regional origin at the moment, but nothing so far. He is also a Biologist, but he said it was boring & they were controlled by big Chemical Companies as to what they could release or continue to study if they find something. That's why he gave it up to become an Environmental Scientist. He is in contact with those doing the research on the Myrtle Rust. He said that it only affects, Errr, something scientific, Eucalyptus type plants, not food plants. It doesn't affect what we eat but it will have a great effect on native wildlife.

He grows all sorts of weird & rare stuff in his garden. He has a licence to do it. Lots of native food plants. Yumm!

Interesting Jayb my garden is a jungle, under control but thats what I planed.
Elephant ears under bottle brush, many types and survived big frosts.
Fruit trees full, had to give up much but not all stone fruit, flying foxes do not mix with rain water tanks.
Got badly bruised in a thread about Indian Miner birds, but they are flying rats.
And introduced species killing natives living on any thing and will one day if not now carry bad illness.
Bazz afraid the world is about us, the group and thats it , some one else can fix it while we are at the beach.
PS Lilly's of every type and Irises every place.

Belly: Got badly bruised in a thread about Indian Miner birds, but they are flying rats.

How would you get bruised on Indian Minor Birds. You ARE right. Although, rat of the air, is taken, by Pigeons. We could call them Cane Toads of the air though.

In Townsville & parts of North Queensland they have just about wiped out Local Species. They nest anywhere & any time. Favourite places under your eves. They have caused a few house fires. Traffic Lights, they nest in the light tube in Winter where it's warm. A US Sailor was caught smuggling out two, yes, nobody knows how he caught them. He was asked if he wanted some more. Apparently they sell for $15000 each in the States. Go figure.

I left in the middle of this to go down to talk to Chris about the Myrtle Rust.

The Latest. It affects 153 tree & shrub species in Australia. It was imported through the Nursery Industry. They haven't found any fungicide that will deal with it as yet, but they are still working on it. It's is seasonable, mostly in wet Summers & mild wet Winters. It is spread by direct contact & wind where it grows in moist environments then spreads to infect new growth leaves. It is potentially very dangerous to Australian Native trees & could potentially cause a complete collapse of Australian Flora & Fauna.

& there ya have it.

All ok jayb,well Ludwig is not impressed with my claim about those birds.
But a female poster ripped flesh of! telling me she was an expert and I should hear and act on her advice, send the yank here 100,s free!
Yes concerned in time others will share our views Ludwig, you, and mine.
On the development of the last rabbit killer, it was smuggled out of the lab before ready and spread about.
Horse racing and sporting stopped because of an introduced virus, prickly pear nearly beat us cane toads have.
What if its one of those middle Africa horror viruses next?

Thanks for your comments Jayb, Bazz and Belly.

There is hope for this thread yet!

Bazz, I get the distinct feeling that if myrtle rust was seen as an agricultural risk, it would have been clamped right down on with just as much conviction as citrus canker was in Emerald in 2004.

But it is viewed ‘only’ as a pathogen of the natural environment and garden plants and therefore nowhere near as important, despite being feared to be a very bad organism.

The same thing seems to apply with Siam weed, which is often called the world’s worst weed, when it popped up near Tully and then near Townsville a few years ago. ‘Only’ an environmental weed, therefore not given as much attention as it should have got. It was still given a fair bit of attention, but I reckon a serious disease of sugarcane would have received ten times as much attention and an absolute determination to eradicate it. I’m not seeing that with Siam weed. It now looks as though it is here to stay and become worse than Lantana and rubbervine combined!

It’s a damn pity, especially given the increased environmental awareness of the last couple of decades.

Jayb, myrtle rust could possibly have come here via migrating birds, but I would think that highly unlikely. Given the very large number of susceptible Myrtaceae species in Australia, you would think that such a fungal pathogen would have become established here thousands or millions of years ago if it could be spread by migrating birds.

So it almost definitely came here via humans. However, such an organism could so easily get into the country despite the best border controls.

We’d need a rigorous quarantine procedure for all foreign arrivals and returning citizens and all imported goods in order to stop organisms which propagate themselves via minute spores. Even then we’d have no confidence in being able to stop them.

But of course, as I said previously, we should be putting in our best efforts at stopping pathogens and feral organisms at our borders, ports and airports.