Kiwifruit Disease Spreads to 20 New Zealand Orchards

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Pastor Dale Morgan

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Nov 10, 2010, 1:18:51 AM11/10/10
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Plagues, Pestilences and Diseases

Kiwifruit Disease Spreads to 20 New Zealand Orchards


November 10, 2010, 12:20 AM EST


By Chris Bourke

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A vine disease threatening New Zealand’s NZ$1.4 billion ($1.1 billion) kiwifruit industry may have spread to as many as 20 orchards, the government said after confirming a third outbreak.

A further two North Island orchards were quarantined pending a “likely” outcome that they are also infected with Pseudomonas syringae pv actinidiae, David Carter, New Zealand’s biosecurity minister, said today in a statement. Infected orchards will be sprayed tomorrow, he said after visiting the Bay of Plenty region in northern New Zealand.

“While the preferred option of dealing with PSA is eradication, this decision can only be made once the spread of the disease is determined,” Carter said. “We hope to know this by Friday afternoon.”

The U.S. and Australia have stopped importing kiwifruit plant material from New Zealand until reviews of the situation are completed. The country is the third-biggest kiwifruit grower after China and Italy, accounting for about 21 percent of global production, and earned about NZ$1.4 billion from the fruit in the year ending March 31, according to Zespri Group Ltd, the world’s biggest marketer of the fruit.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is investigating 20 New Zealand kiwifruit orchards out of 75 that have potential symptoms, Carter said. The infected orchards are in the Bay of Plenty area, which produces 77 percent of New Zealand’s kiwifruit crop, Zespri said.

New Zealand until now had remained free of the disease, which was first found in Japan more than 25 years ago and spread to Italy in the 1990s, causing millions of dollars in damages.

“It is still too early to say how PSA arrived in New Zealand, or how long it has been here,” said Carter. The disease, carried by airborne spores, appears to attack under certain climatic conditions and may have always been in the country, he said.

“We don’t know if it’s been here for 10 years or 10 days,” Peter Ombler, president of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. said in an interview. “The reality is we have got it.”
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