The Psa-V infection, which has a stranglehold over the kiwifruit industry, is confirmed in the orchard of the man in charge of combating it.

Kiwifruit Vine Health Incorporated chairman John Burke owns a 5ha Gold kiwifruit orchard on No.3 Road in Te Puke and Psa-V was confirmed there this week.

Even the man at the fore of combating Psa is not immune to having his orchard fall prey to the vine canker.

'On 13th September – two days ago – my orchard was confirmed with Psa-V,” says John.

He is now one of the growers who has to make some difficult decisions about the future of the orchard.

Pollination is approaching in orchards and growers need to decide whether they are going to pollinate their vines for next year's crop.

John says it may be a better decision for some growers to wait.

'Growers are at the stage where they're infected and they're going to have to make some decisions about what their doing.

'So a grower with really heavy infection could probably make the decision quite easily to cut their vines off.

'And if they think the infection is right in the stem of the vine – which we have found – when it's gone right though the plant, they've had to pull them out by the roots.

'If they think the infection is just in the canopy of the vine, well a lot of them will go for cutting below the graft and looking to graft on something else onto that stump.”

The question or dilemma that growers face is what they graft onto that stump, says John.

'And grafting back Gold, is not an option.”

When asked if Psa would mean the ‘end of Gold' – John says it 'doesn't look good”.

'It seems a weak plant.”

Of the 262 orchards confirmed with the infection Psa-V – the majority are Gold orchards.

'Only about six/half a dozen Green orchards have been infected with Psa-V, but I expect that to increase as the vines come out of dormancy,” says John.

Gold orchards are coming out of dormancy first and the number of orchards being confirmed with Psa-V grows by about 20 a week.

John says the new cultivars are showing early signs that they may be a bit more resistant to Psa, but research is still been done.

'The industry is reluctant to go out with wholesale recommendations to growers around ‘try this new cultivator' – and it could fail.

"So they would have spent a whole lot more money re-grafting and growing it back and training it – and it tips over on them.

'So that's more money down the gurgler.”

John says it might be better for some growers to pull out their vines and wait.

'But it's hard for growers who need the income to make that decision.

'The human instinct is to say ‘I've got to keep going', but financially it may be better to actually do a ‘stop loss' and wait – and deal with how you're going to cash flow your way through it until you can find a more resistant root stock and cultivator to put on your vine.”

KVH has set an objective to have some 'serious solutions” by 2013, says John.

'We're trying to get everyone planning two years out to say ‘I've got to get through this hole', but of course come 2013 you're not going to be back to full production again.

'It's a really tough financial decision for them.”

It's working out what the financial implications are and it's all about cash flow.

'We need to quantify what this is; manage what you can measure. It may not look pretty, but get it out there, get it on paper.”

John says most growers have good incomes from this year, so they will probably be feeling reasonably comfortable with their bank position at the moment.

'But what they need to plan for is the next five years – when that money runs out, but they still have to service their mortgage and have to re-establish their orchards.

'For instance, on my orchard if I cut out all my vines tomorrow, I don't have to spend anymore money – I get the income from the crop I harvested just back in May and I'm sweet until I start to run out of cash.”

John says the key to this is the timeline and KVH meeting the objective of finding solutions to Psa by 2013.

'And we're backing ourselves to do it.

'Assuming we will achieve that objective, we can then work through the situations with the growers and hopefully get them through to the other side – as many as we can to the other side. Some won't make it.”