Tropical Soda Apple

Abstracts:

• TROPICAL SODA APPLE IN PENNSYLVANIA: MERELY AN ISOLATED INCIDENT? D. D. Lingenfelter and W. S. Curran, 1998. Proc. NEWSS 52:22.

TROPICAL SODA APPLE IN PENNSYLVANIA: MERELY AN ISOLATED INCIDENT? D. D. Lingenfelter and W. S. Curran, 1998. Proc. NEWSS 52:22.

Tropical soda apple (Solanum viarum Dunal) (TSA) is an exotic, perennial, noxious pasture weed primarily found in Florida, with minor infestations in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Since TSA was found in Florida in the late 1980s, it has infested over 1 million acres (405,000 ha) of pastures, rangelands, other cropping areas, and ditch banks in the southeastern region of the United States. In the summer of 1996, TSA was found in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. It is believed to have spread to Pennsylvania by seed in manure via cattle transport from Florida in 1995. A local crop consultant was unable to identify the plants and subsequently forwarded a specimen to Penn State for identification. Several immature TSA plants were collected from the site following identification and the area since has been monitored for new TSA plants.

The recent TSA occurrence in Pennsylvania prompted federally-permitted research at Penn State University to determine if TSA can survive in northern climates. In 1997, a field experiment was initiated at the Penn State Agronomy Research Farm in central Pennsylvania. Tropical soda apple plants were grown to determine the potential for viable seed production and if TSA can overwinter and regenerate from rootstock in the Northeast. Preliminary results suggest that TSA may have the potential to reproduce as far north as central Pennsylvania.