Plant Disease

an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution providing programs and services to the people of Hawai‘i without regard to race, sex, gender identity and expression, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, arrest and court record, sexual orientation, or status as a covered veteran. Find CTAHR publications at www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/freepubs. Taro (Colocasia es-culenta (L.) Schott) grows in Hawai‘i and throughout the tropical Pacific as an edible aroid of historical and contemporary signifi-cance (Figure 1). Farmers cultivate kalo (Hawaiian for taro) in wet lowland (Figure 2) or dryland (Figure 3) taro patches for its starchy, nutritious corms. The heart-shaped leaves are edible and can also serve as food wrappings. Historically, taro crops provided nutritious food that helped early Polynesians to successfully colonize the Hawaiian Islands. “Taro ” refers to plants in one of four genera within the family Araceae: Colocasia, Xanthosoma, Alocasia, and Cyrtosperma. These aroids vary in use and extent of cultivation among Pacific Island societies. In Hawai‘i, the genus most commonly grown and consumed is Colocasia, and “taro” or “dasheen ” commonly refers to C. esculenta. Globally, taro is the fourteenth most consumed vegetable, with 12 million tonnes (~13 million US tons) produced from about 2 million hectares (~5 million acres) and yielding on average 6.5 tonnes