In 1992 PRSV was discovered in the papaya plantations in Puna. At that time 95% of Hawaiian papayas were being grown in Puna.23 The government immediately initiated a
program of eradication requiring plants from infected plantations to be destroyed.3 Nevertheless the virus continued to spread and in 1994 the Hawaiian state government admitted that the situation was out of control. In less than three years one third of all the plantations in Puna had become infected