Citizen science effort encouraged to track new coffee pest
Thursday, March 20, 2014 - 07:50
in Mathematics & Economics
A new pest of coffee has been discovered by Drs. Scot Nelson and Michael Melzer, faculty at the UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR). The disease symptoms, which have not been reported anywhere else in the world, are circular yellow or yellow-green lesions, or spots, about ¼" (5 mm) in diameter on the leaves and petioles (stems). Anecdotal evidence suggests that it renders the coffee cherries unusable, though it is not yet known what the lesions look like on the cherries. More pictures of affected leaves can be found at the website Nelson has created to publicize the disease.