A multi-million dollar Kiwifruit claim against the government will be heard after June 1, 2017.

The High Court in Wellington made the ruling at the request of the Crown Law Office.

The first official reports of Psa-V were back in 2010. File photo.

The new trial date is later than the one sought by The Kiwifruit Claim, with plaintiffs wanting to get the trial out of the way well before the 2017 general election campaign.

A total of 212 plaintiffs are suing for more than $375 million following the introduction of the Psa-V bacteria in New Zealand.

Psa-V does not affect human or animal health, or any other plant life aside from kiwifruit vines.

The bacteria is thought to have entered the country in 2009, via the importation of anther, according to University of Otago's Dr Russell Poulter and his team.

The first official report of Psa-V was in Te Puke on November 5, 2010, though instances of Psa-V were suspected before this date.

Kiwifruit Claim chairman John Cameron says its lawyers plan to present evidence to the court which is alleged to show officials negligently approved the importation of pollen, later discovered as Psa-V infected, against the government's own policies and procedures, as well as the date and time it arrived in New Zealand.

This information has led Auckland University legal expert, Professor Bill Hodge, to say The Kiwifruit Claim has a 'smoking gun” of evidence against the government.

Bill says if the claim has 'chapter and verse of the specific entry” then, in his view, it has a very strong prima facie case.

Over the three months of the trial, the claim plans to call evidence from the kiwifruit growers and their families whose livelihoods were devastated by Psa-V, along with many other witnesses and experts.

The court will also hear evidence from current and former officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries.

The court's order was made after a hearing earlier this month, determining the 2017 trial will be to confirm whether a duty of care is owed by the Ministry for Primary Industries to kiwifruit growers.

The plaintiffs allege that Biosecurity New Zealand was negligent, resulting in an estimated total loss of $885 million to kiwifruit growers across New Zealand.

The Kiwifruit Claim was launched in September 2014, with legal documents filed in November of that year. Losses for the 212 plaintiffs as a result of the 2009 introduction of Psa-V into New Zealand have been estimated at $376 million.