554 Journal of the Department op Agriculture. 



THE "FIJI DISEASE" OF SUGAR-CANE. 



Advance Report on One of the Most Serious Cane 



Diseases. 



TiiE uume '■I'i.ji disease" has been applied to this serious malady 

 because it was first reported from tlie ishiud of Fiji. Further study 

 of the disease will doubtless lead to a better and more ai)i)ropriate 

 name. 



The disease has been known in Fiji since 1905 at least. Althougii 

 observed by many people, it has not been thoroughly investigated, 

 and the only published accounts that we have thus far been able to 

 find, by men who have studied the disease first-hand, are those of 

 H. L. Lyon and F. Muir, both of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' 

 Experiment Station. Their articles are published in the Hairaiian 

 Planters' Record, a journal that is not widely distributed. An 

 account has also been given recently by Otto A. Reinking (Diseases 

 of Sugar-cane in the Philippines — Fiji Disease, Sugar News, 1, 

 17th-19th November, 192U), who used the published matter of Lyon 

 as a basis for his note. , ' . 



This disease occurs in the Fiji Islands, New Guinea, New South 

 Wales, and has just been discovered in the island of Mindoro, of the 

 Philippine Islands. It was ftnind in Fiji hj F. Muir in the early 

 part of 1910, and reported on by him (Ha. PI. Rec, 3, 197, 1910). 

 It was also reported on from Fiji by H. L. Lyon (Ha. PL Rec, 4, 

 230-232, 1911). who made a special study of the disease as it occurred 

 in that locality. The disease was reported on from New (iuinea by 

 Mr. S. S. North, of the Colonial Sugar Eefiuery Co., of Australia, 

 who wrote to Lyon that one of the sugar company's men had found 

 the disease to be very prevalent in parts of New Guinea (Lyon, H. L., 

 Fiji Disease in New Guinea, Ha. PL Rec., 12, 200, 1915) on native 

 cane. In view of this discovery, Lyon expressed the opinion that the 

 original home of tlie disease was very likely New Guinea, from which 

 place it had' spread to Fiji and Australia. 



The occ\irrence of the disease in Australia is indicated by Lyon 

 (Ha. PL Rec, 2, 200, 1915) and has been reported by D. S. North 

 as appearing on experimental plots of New Guinea cane, and by H. A. 

 Haywood (Agr. Ga:., N.S.W., Nov., 1920, pp. 773-780), who states 

 that it is now a problem with which growers will have to contend. 



The presence of the Fiji disease in Mindoro, Philippine Islands, 

 has been suspected for the last three years. W. H. Weston, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, in 1919-20 learned of this 

 suspicion from C. ^V . Hines, of the Bureau of Agriculture at Manila, 

 and a published note of the possible occurrence of the Fiji disease 

 in Mindoro has appeared in the report of the Pest Control Section of 

 the Bureau of Agriculture {PJuL Agr. Rev., 12, 9;5. 1919). During 

 the Christmas vacation (1920-21) Prof. Otto A. Keinking, of the 

 College of Agriculture at Los Banos, Avent to Mindoro and found the 

 Fiji disease there doing grc^at daniage. According to one of the 



