Controlling Phytophera spread

[mikethepike]

Phytophera cinnamoni is probably the world's worst plant pathogen because it attacks such a wide variety and number of plant genera and species. My question is: Are we taking its containment seriously enough both as a society and as bushwalkers? I pose this question because I get the impression that our efforts to control its spread are rather token. If this is true, perhaps it's because, whatever we do to limit the spread, it will get there eventually anyway spread by animals or rain etc.
Commonly used walking trails such as some of the tracks in the Adelaide Hills will have Phytophera foot-ware cleaning stations that consist of a bristle mat to clean your boots on, but with no sign as to whether you are leaving or entering an infected area. And if it's muddy, will the amount of mud you can remove really make much difference? The Bibbulmun Track has boot sole baths - lidded shallow steel trays containing water and brush. This seems a more serious effort at control but if it is effective more work need to go into the design as the lids are VERY heavy and I met one person on the track who said that he'd never use them again because one lid fell back onto and hurt his leg. I consider that if it was really serious about stopping phytophera spread, cleaning station should have meths, not water or nothing.
If anyone wants to see just how devastating this pathogen can be, just go to the Porogurup NP in SW of WA (but stay outside the visually devastated fenced off areas!)

[photohiker]

Agree.

Also, I have seen some stations is the Adelaide Hills that seem to be setup the wrong way around. (ie when leaving an area) and not to mention the lack of repairs and maintenance with broken, worn out or missing shoe scrubbers.

At places like Mt Lofty, the traffic is such that I fail to understand how these brush stations could possibly halt the spread even if everyone used them. They are never cleaned!

[Hallu]

Commonly used walking trails such as some of the tracks in the Adelaide Hills will have Phytophera foot-ware cleaning stations that consist of a bristle mat to clean your boots on, but with no sign as to whether you are leaving or entering an infected area.

Yeah I saw exactly this in Flinders Chase NP, on Kangaroo Island. At that time, it was the beginning of my bushwalking experience in Australia, and I had no idea what phytophthora (and no phytophera) was, and didn't know what this "cleaning station" was here for...

[Nuts]

I've wondered if it was enough just to have a few cleaning stations. It's a shame to need more signage but it seems a bit dismal down here in Tassie too and subject to ad hoc maintenance (making sure stuff is still in place, monitoring how and if they are being used. I hope someone is monitoring spread). Given that it is likely Impossible to stop, is it worth more than these current measures??

Here's the new biosecurity fact sheet for tas, good to see it prominent on the OLT site:

http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/file.aspx?id=28181

[Binder]

G'day all

Parks hat on

I might be able to shed a bit of light... Parks in conjunction with NRM South are about to roll out a program to deal with the introduction of pathogens into the World Heritage Area.

A bit of background. There has been a detailed Phytophthera management plan in place for the WHA for a couple of years now. To date there has been a lot of work done on mapping, looking at how it spreads and the best ways to slow the rate of spread into new areas. A lot of behind the scenes work has been going on in targeting the major spreading agents that we have some control over. This has included introducing cleaning/hygene standards for heavy plant and machinery that works in the WHA, and the formation of agreements between Parks and the major players such ad Hydro, Transend, DIER and Parks staff, who frequently use heavy machinery, helicopters etc, that in the past have been a major source of mud being brought into the area. It has also been recognised that scrubdown stations on the walking tracks, miles away from trailheads possibly had little effect, and were difficult to manage. It only takes a couple of boots or a grubby wombat to walk from an infected area to a clean area and all the good work is undone.

With that in mind, we are also looking at major new threats to the area, such as Didymo (Rock Snot) which is not in Tassie yet, but would decimate watercourses, Chytrid Fungus, that affects frogs, and Platypus Cancur that affects, well Platypus... These pretty much don't exist in the WHA yet, so the focus is on reducing the likely hood of these new pathogens entering, which in turn may also stop Phytopthera entering currently clean areas.

Numerous new boot washdown stations will be established at strategic track heads, that use a chemical called F10 to kill off any pathogens on boots. I haven't seen one of the stations yet, but reports are that they seem to work and are easy to use and maintain. The old scrubbing brush stations often just disloged the mud and it ended up in creeklines, or back on the walking track etc, so hopefully the new ones do the job. There will also be an awareness campaign across the different agencies to hilight the issues, and what could happen if these get into the state or Parks. Google Dydimo New Zealand to get an idea what we could be faced with...

There is no perfect solution, and it all depends on everyone keeping their gear clean and dry when entering these areas.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Binder

[north-north-west]

Well done, Binder. Great to see TasPAWS working on this.

[mikethepike]

Good stuff Binder. Thankyou.

Numerous new boot washdown stations will be established at strategic track heads, that use a chemical called F10 to kill off any pathogens on boots. I haven't seen one of the stations yet, but reports are that they seem to work and are easy to use and maintain.

I hope this doesn't take long getting adopted elsewhere.
Another control method of course in really vulnerable areas of high botanic diversity is to disallow access to people including bushwalkers. I'm thinking particularly of the Stirling Range NP in WA. A high traverse route of that range would be an incredible walk and only the lack of water high up is probably all that prevents people doing it. But that is a good thing I think as it is nice to keep it pristine (where no tracks are) and this should slow the spread of phytophera. Even if there was water up high, the thought of spreading phytophera would keep me off I think.
That's a good thing about the Flinders Ranges - you can walk there with no concerns about phytophera.

[Nuts]

Good to hear from you Binder. I guess it is something that even drastic measures wouldn't help, even if the budget allowed. Let's hope eh..
This: http://www.f10biocare.co.uk/ ?

[davidmorr]

Another control method of course in really vulnerable areas of high botanic diversity is to disallow access to people including bushwalkers. I'm thinking particularly of the Stirling Range NP in WA. A high traverse route of that range would be an incredible walk and only the lack of water high up is probably all that prevents people doing it. But that is a good thing I think as it is nice to keep it pristine (where no tracks are) and this should slow the spread of phytophera. Even if there was water up high, the thought of spreading phytophera would keep me off I think.

Sadly it not all bushwalkers have your principles. There is a phytophthera infestation in Barrington Tops, on the north side of the Hunter Valley in NSW. A quarantine area was established a number of years ago, and it has been getting bigger as time goes on.

Yet still we see bushwalkers walking out of the area. These are not picnickers, but people with packs and tents and who should know better.

I also know of an outbreak on the Central Coast of NSW too, near Mangrove Creek.

Got to wonder if it is eventually going to infect the whole country

[Rob A]

Given some of the responses in the 'boot cleaning at ariports' threads Im inclined to agree.
Barrington, between the phyto and the scotch broom is getting more and more stalked every year. And its a herritage area?
I doubt there will be a answer further than keeping land packages out of the clutches of parks and keeping areas quarantined out of reach of Australians.