Myrtle Rust ALERT!
Myrtle Rust was confirmed on Raoul Island on Saturday 1 April 2017
If found DO NOT touch - Phone the MPI Hotline 0800 80 99 66 immediately
This is an exotic disease causing plant pathogen (a rust fungus) from South America.
What Can it Infect?
Myrtle rust only effects plants from the Myrtaceae plant family including some of our most iconic endemic plants - rata, pohutukawa, manuka, kanuka and ramarama - as well as exotic myrtles like feijoa, guava and eucalypts
Symptoms
The early stage is purple blotching, spotting and deformation / curl of leaves; the mature stage is bright yellow to orange (egg yolk coloured) pustule spore as seen below
What to Do if Spotted
DO NOT touch - you will become contaminated and need to de-contaminate. If you cannot move from the site without spreading contamination stay put (but put your safety first) and phone for someone to bring you the required equipment to decontaminate.
Phone the MPI Hotline 0800 80 99 66 immediately
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Thanks for this. It's alarming to have this in Australia and now Raoul Island. Note that we've been working with MPI and tonight will be adding an alert banner across NatureWatch NZ plus an official blog post.
Thanks for that @jon_sullivan. I will link to the blog post here when I see it :)
Our official post is now live here and I've just added an MPI banner to our home page and user dashboard to alert everyone to keep a close look out for this.
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