Mysteries, Chemtrails, Aerosols :: Mysterious NZ

[Crakka]

Hi guys. My subject sounds a little removed from the main topic here but my suspicious mind ended up bringing me here quite by instinct!

I've been involved in the Horticultural Trade all my working life (nearly 30yrs) and was trained officially by doing a Trade Cert in Hort & Gardening. I worked almost 20 of those years for a major City Council in the North Island. Now I am self-employed and run my own horticultural business.

The point of my post is that I recently made an observation of a phenomenon I hadn't really noticed before and certainly not in the widespread way it has just appeared. My first observation was made several weeks back when I noticed that all the Agave plants inj one of my customer's gardens along a fenceline were covered in very fine white spots that looked, in my experience, like spray drift damage. I commented to her that maybe the neighbour had been spraying recently and some had come across/through the fence. I went and spoke to the neighbour who I also work for and noticed on the way that all her Agaves had the same fine white spotting. She had not done any spraying and couldn't remember the last time they did any. When I went back to the first neighbour's place I observed that ALL the Agaves in her property on ALL sides of her property also had the white spots. Since then I have observed that ALL Agaves that I have looked at in the last few weeks in a wide area of West Auckland also have varying degrees of these very fine white spots.

Now I found this a little odd. While I'm no expert on succulent plants I am aware that the main common disease they get is a fungal one which starts off as whitish spots but then soon turn brown usually from the centre and spread out. However, the fungal spots are normally much bigger to start with and then can get bigger still as they change colour over a few weeks. They are usually appear fairly randomly or localised too.

The spotting I observed was very different. It was masses of very tiny bright white spots covering large areas, if not the whole, of the plant. The effect looked exactly like you'd expect from spray drift where the plant copped a good covering of fine droplets HOWEVER over the next few weeks these spots didn't brown off but faded in colour or became slightly faded. I commented at the time that it looked very much to me like when I had been grinding the edge of some metal blades outside once with an electric grinder and some of the fine, hot metal dust had landed on a plant beside where I was working. The effect was an almost identical pattern although the spot colour was more akin to burn damage so it varied from whitish yellow to darker hues - I assume because of the varying temperatures of the dust.

Now I wish I had some photographic evidence but I hadn't really given it enough thought until now so have decided to post first to see if anybody else had noticed this at all around Auckland in the last month or anywhere else in NZ for that matter. Normally I wouldn't have gone any further with the observation BUT it was almost immediately before the worst 3 or so weeks of wet and windy weather we've had for 4 or 5 years accompanied by some intense periods of electrical storm activity during the first week or so of it. Hence my intuition was charged. I will attempt to get some photos posted over the next few days.

Please if anyone else has made similar observations or can elaborate on any condition of Agave plants that might explain the situation then by all means post away.

Thanks.

[secondfield]

Welcome to the forum Crakka,

Seems like an astute observation you have made there. I guess the next stage would be to contact other people (possibly nationwide) in your proffession to ascertain if this is a widespread and new occurence...

Look forward to hearing more from you re this...

Good luck!

[Melody Anderson]

Welcome Crakka,

Obivously some people think it may be due to rain:

http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/old_archives/arid_gardener/2000-March/001101.html

We have had a huge amount of heavy rain and hail recently...

We have quite a number of Agave plants that are showing this white spotting... I compared the condition of the plants now, with some photos taken in January and the plants were then in very good condition.

I did notice that the ones that are more sheltered have fewer areas of the spotting. One of the most exposed plants has quite a severe case of it. The spotting that is evident is tending to be on the lower horizontal surfaces but there are some exceptions on a few vertical leaves. On some of them the spots tend to favour one side of the leaf more than others...

I didn't notice however, whether the spotting was in evidence before the severe weather as you suggest in your observations...

Here are some photos - one from January and a couple taken today (in Titirangi, by the way)...


January 2008


Today August 2008

[Melody Anderson]

Thought I'd post a few more photos taken today. I'm not sure if there is any connection, but we have noticed some 'spotting' on other surfaces around the yard recently also - they seem to have a similar pattern...


Outdoor furniture


Railings


Small Agave, out in the open...


A different plant (not sure what this one is called)


Same plant as above, new unfurling leaf...

[solohawke]

Check very closely for mites if the dots are very small, it is a tell-tail sign of the little buggers. You may need a magnifying glass to see them. But i think the hort person should know that, and im probably wrong.

[steve clougher]

is it desperately expensive to run a chemical analysis these days?

i reckon it looks alarming, knowing what we know !!!

[Deano]

Is it...A-Sea salt drift, B-Acid rain, C-Virus or mite, or D-Some form of chemical spray damage. Lock in your answer...now!

[secondfield]

Hmmm a powder type substance, not blistering or pitting in / on the plants?

[Crakka]

Thanks for the feedback, especially Melody. As your photos show fairly clearly what I'm talking about I won't bother getting any more at this stage (which I was thinking of doing today after further observation).

First of all I'd just like to draw people's attention to your second photos of the plants. These show the typical symptoms of both the yellowy spots that would normally be attributed to damage from both fungus "attack" and hail "damage" that get browner with time. However, still very obvious are the finer white spots that are obviously separate. And believe me when I say that the fine size and "delicate" nature of the spotting (suggesting a "light" application) and position on some leaves (vertical leaves and a few spots on the underside of almost vertical leaves) makes it obvious to me at least that this ISN'T hail damage

I did look at a whole bunch of Agaves yesterday while doing some other work around West Auckland including the ones I first observed. This is about 4 weeks or so after first seeing this spotting. What I've observed was the following -

* The white spotting first seen still hasn't faded anywhere near what you'd expect from "normal" fungal or hail damage. On most plants it is still quite "white".

* The difference between the white spotting and other damage is quite obvious and has become so over the last few weeks. We've had quite a few short bursts of hail here and I personally think the hail damage is easy to see as different from my observations of "when" it happened and how it has transformed on the leaves.

* The more I look the more I see that every outdoor Agave plant in the area has the spots to varying degrees depending on whether they are out in the open (complete coverage) or almost completely sheltered by other plants (much lighter spotting).

These observations beg further questions -

- What about indoor specimens completely protected from the elements?
- What about other plant species? Is the Agave more sensitive to whatever this is and thus the main displayer of the symptom?

I haven't really had any contact with other horticultural people who might know during this time but will maybe ring around if I have time today/on the weekend. I have not however been able to find this particular display of spotting and its slow/non-fading properties described so far in any publication here or the few online I've looked at.

And to finish atm, of particular interest is the spotting on inanimate surfaces shown in Melody's photos. If this happened at exactly the same time as the spotting on the Agaves then a querying mind would surely suspect a link. I haven't gone looking any further than the plants themselves and I haven't devoted much time to researching this hence I was keen to see if anyone else had looked into it. My observations and very brief research into published information for any clues about diseases or pests is somewhat lacking as an investigation and I just haven't had time to devote to it. I will be looking around a bit more but at least there's food for thought here so please continue to post any evidence or observations of your own (as opposed to mere speculation!) to further this interesting discussion.

Thanks :D

[steve clougher]

some of the evidence or alleged evidence i've seen on the internet, posted in support of the chemical composition of chemtrails, is taken from the filters of airconditioning units

anyone with a wholesome and enduring relationship to an aircon, might be able to pull the filter and take a sample which would be better than scrapings off a verandah rail :?: :idea:

[Crakka]

I've forwarded Melody's photos (hope you don't mind?!) and a little detail about my observations onto a local succulent specialist/commercial grower who I spoke to on the phone earlier. They also have contact (if necessary) with someone they noted as the leading local expert on succulents & cacti so will let you know what feedback I get.

[Crakka]

Okay, so the feedback I got was quite a simple explanation but based on my widespread observations at least it just doesn't "feel" conclusive to me, and I quote -

"It looks like hail damage to me. It looks the same damage we have on our plants which is from the hail. I am sure the plants will grow out of it unless they rot in the extremely wet weather.
That of course does not explain the spotting on the furniture.

Sorry I can t be more helpful."

The relevant part of my reply to this was -

"Without any extensive personal knowledge of things affecting succulent
plants in particular I very much appreciate your own expert opinion. My
questioning mind though and personal experience with hail damage on
hardier species still just leaves me a little wondering due to the very
fine nature of the spotting on ALL Agaves observed in a very wide area of
West Auckland. The apparent slow rate at which these spots faded without
the deterioration I've normally observed with hail damage is particularly
baffling to me as I would have assumed (maybe wrongly) that succulents
would exhibit this damage more dramatically than so-called hardier species.

As for the spotting on the furniture, I didn't observe that personally so
can not validate it."

I'm not sure if the "leading local expert" noted in my last post was contacted. However, if anyone wants to follow this further, and I suggest strongly it should probably be with evidence of their own experience, then you could try inquiring with the guy who runs "Coromandel Cacti" - I'm told they're based in Auckland despite the name.

I guess realistically only an independent chemical analysis at the time of the first observations would have given the information necessary to make some kind of informed conclusion or opinion. That of course would require somebody at the ready when things like this appear - something I personally have never considered and am probably not equipped to do at present.

We therefore probably just have to notch this particular occurrence up to experience and hope that someone reading this thinks it's worth looking into further.