Cylindropuntia versicolor up at ~ 3800 ft.
60% of joints show this growth.
Rain and fog at this location for last few days.
Does anyone know if it is bacterial and if so is it plant necrotic?

Thanks,
AZED

Ed, try to remove this black stuff, I'm quite sure there is an insect inside this plant dropping his 'droppings' at the exit hole. I'm not telling this is Cactoblastis, but it might be or something similar.

Scary!
Pieter...what is "Cactoblastis"?

Oh, I sure hope it's not Cactoblastis cactorum. It is not supposed to have migrated as far as Arizona.

Thanks for the input,
Cactoblastis cactorum has jumped the Mississippi but we are not so certain it will ever be a problem here. It seems to be sticking close to the ocean and enjoys a humid enviornment.
Mexico has been hit a few times but that has been on their east coast. The lavrae that do the damage, and to the best of my info prefers cladodes to segments, burrow inside the pad when very small and eat the pads from the inside. Until the pad dies detecting them is difficult they don't excrete or infect externally.
I might head up there again if time permits. The malady is only at the intersection of the segments. I can do a survey of a few acres and see just how prevelent this goopy crap is.
I still lean toward bacteria but I unlean pretty easy if any facts pop up.
We do have Cactoborsis cactorum a similar critter to the "blastis" and it will take a young barrel out periodically but most F. wiz can handle the invasion long enough for the larva to metemotph into the moth leaving a caloused hole in the plant. They usually enter from a ground/body contact area.
Thanks again for the thoughts,
Ed

I just found a link to images of the cladode damage that can give you an idea of how the damage is internal until it's too late.

http://www.invasive.org/browse/subthumb.cfm?sub=8868

My thoughts also...
Peyton

Well,
Looks like I go play in the mountains again tomorrow. Awww Shucks
Ed

Hi,
The reason I was thinking about a borer is that in Peru I was in a Valley where the majority of the cacti had a similar black thing and after examination I found it was a borer insect causing this.

Well the dogs and I spent a nice morning at Gates Pass. Let me post what I found.

Same plant as first image of this post


Same joint but the slimy, goopy stuff is as crisp as a potatoe chip in one day.


After a 10% bleach shower and a little tweezer work


Another joint from the same plant


A section of a main trunk that looks like it has been fighting this for a long time.
The black hole is filled with the same material as the joints.


The plant was in an area that prevented me from splitting a segment open but I saw no indication of any boring occuring. It seems to disolve the plant into that black carbon like substance.

Three other plants in the same area were either fine or having a different problem from dehydration or frost.

Have a good day,
AZED

Hi Ed,
Well on some of these pictures it's obvious these things come from inside the plants as a viscous liquid. In this case I would tend to agree with you it is something bacterial. In most cases Erwinia is responsable for bacterial rot on cacti, but Pseudomonas can also be the causal agent. Anyway all the cases I have seen and all the pictures I have seen so far have a slightly different disease properties. I've never seen this liquid gets hard and accumulated like in this case. But I've never seen bacterial rot on Cylindropuntia neither, so perhaps this has something to do with it.

You could give one a drink of imidicloprid and see if it goes away. If not, it isn't insects.

That's a scary, scary link, btw.

OK are you ready?
I believe the malady on this Cylindropuntia is the same or similar fungal attack that is called Phyllosticta pad spot on Opuntia in the englemannii complex. I have not heard or read reports of Cylindropuntia susceptibility to such a problem but after seeing the black substance dry out so fast and its similarity to the Phyllosticta pad spot, that I am very familiar with, it is the most reasonable possibility.
I have left a message for Dr. Olsen to see if she has any info on this. When it comes to plant pathology she is very knowledgeable.

Daiv,
I doubt any bacterium Erwina of any sort. I have plenty of experience with Erwinia cacticida ( some use Erwinia carnegieana. I believe they are one and the same or if not so closely related that it is beyond the scope of this discussion.) The black ooze that at times leaks from the Saguaro has a strong foul smell to attract the Drosophila sp (a fruit fly). that depends on the ooze for reproduction.
there was no noticeable odor to the Cholla malady.

Unfortunately for the cacti both maladies are often terminal. The fungus is a very slow certain demise. The bacterial infection in the Saguaro can at times be fought off in the beginning stage If not the plant becomes a huge source of infective material transferable to its neighbors by several vectors.

For easy info see:
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1399.pdf

Though these papers are specific to Stenocereus gummosus the process is identical( enough) in Carnegiea gigantea.

For a little more stuff see:
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/60/2/619.pdf

If you love pain see:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC184061/

If Mary has anything to add I'll post it.
Have a wonderful day,
AZED

Hello

It all depends on what virtues you like to impose upon a poor plant doing what a plant does.

here in Australia we say thank god for the cacto blastis every night before bed

and again when we wake.

Thank god for the cacto blastis

DAVID

David,
Oz's success with the cactoblastis was amazing. I wish we could find something equivilent for the buffelgrass invasion.
Much of southern Arizona's economy is the tourist industry. Without cacti we turn into ghost towns.

Today is "Beat Back Buffelgrass Day" I need to go. I will be at an information booth for a hour and then grab my digging bar to dig a ew bags of the invasive.

Linda--get out the aspirin!!!!!!!
AZED

Just look at this!!!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... tralia.jpg


And my composition, nature take it´s way!!!

Hello

I think the first picture and monument says it all.The Prickle pair incident led to some of the tuffest quarentine laws in the world.Thanks Tequila

Notwithstanding these laws, we currently have a problem with some grass that was planted along a highway near me. It t was meant to stabilize the soil. It has now run along that highway for many miles and is proving almost impossible to erradicate. I did not record its name in my memory bank . I fear it may be the Buffelgrass .

I hope the Bufflegrass finds its natural predator(and I hope it is also safe insofar as it does not also destroy other unique flora and fauna.

We also tried to remove pests from our introduced sugar cane fields to the North ,in Queensland once again. Cane toads.

These toads came from from South America were introduced. With no natural predators of their own , they have exploaded exponentially in number .Since their arrival they have taken a liking to almose everything else in our environment .They are so large that they will eat th dogfood left out for the family pet . worse still the males have poison sacks on their backs with the result that eaten by birds lizards and etc those animals die as well. But given the fact that the females lay millions of eggs each , each year it is clear that their survival is almost guaranteed.

They have crossed deserts and moved south in alarming numbers and are spread over great distances to the point that they now threaten world heratige sites eg the magnificent Kakadu national park.

Our unique environments must be saved.

Thanks for your personal efforts Ed

david

Alfonso,
My kind of humor-that was great!!

David,
We have set up a non-commercial site for buffelgrass info. You can see the diagnostics of the grass and I certainly hope you are mistaken with your potential ID.
So far the only natural preditor that will kill the plant here are the Homo sapiens var. concernus
See:

http://www.buffelgrass.org

Our neighborhood efforts netted 96 large garbage bags of the invader. I have not been given the Pima County totals yet. Our fight has just begun.

G'day kind Sir,
AZED

I forgot the site for the "Weed Wackers". A fantastic group that for a decade have kept my office, Tucson County Mountain Park, free of buffelgrass. A more dedicated group would be hard to find. Good info at:

http://www.pima.gov/nrpr/eeduc/voluntee ... ackers.htm

This desert is worth the effort I assure you.
Ed

That buffelgrass issue is serious

Here in northern Mexico It grows out of control and there is not any program to control it.
It spreads everywere

Some example:

South Texas by Brownsville area


Zacatecas - Saltillo


San Miguel Allende, El Charco del Ingenio (Guanajuato)(Central Mexico)

Alfonso,
Thank you for the wonderful examples of buffelgrass.
In Texas it is still used as graze for range cattle as it is in Mexico.
From the standpoint of a cattle rancher it is cheap, needs no care and won't kill the cattle.
Millions of hectares in Sonora have been switched to buffelgrass with help from the government.
To feed the family in Sonora touristas pesos are not so important and beef is food.
Our Society partners with other organizations to pay residents to fence and preserve a small area of natural columnar cacti and undergrowth in a sea of buffelgrass. That way the family get fed and some of the flatland columnars have a chance to be seen by our children.
The buffelgrass situation is more complicated than most think. Here it dooms our livelyhood, there it is free browse. They now have fires daily and not enough firemen to handle it in many cases.
Good Day,
Ed

PS: Would you mind if I forwarded a couple of the images to our buffelgrass coordination committee to see if they would like to use them as examples?

Ed