Kiwifruit Vine Health Incorporated has confirmed the kiwifruit vine canker Psa is at a Katikati orchard.
The Psa-V positive result is being verified with further test results expected next week.
A Psa infected leaf.
The Katikati discovery comes two weeks after Psa was found on a kiwifruit orchard near Waihi.
The Waihi discovery is 70km from the Te Puke priority zone containing the majority of infected orchards.
In the meantime, KVH is establishing a new priority zone in Katikati.
Details of the priority zone boundaries and updated maps are being prepared and will be available on the KVH website.
Extensive monitoring of orchards is continuing in the Katikati and Waihi regions. Growers are urged to take all necessary steps to protect their orchards. Factsheets and protocols are available on the KVH website.
KVH acting general manger Terry Richards is urging growers to continue to monitor their vines, as the symptoms are easier to spot in spring.
4 comments
As you sow so shall you reap
Posted on 28-09-2011 15:44 | By Kiwimon
And it will continue to spread as long as we don't look after our soil and stop practicing this insane mono-culture! Large harvests with minimal labor, same year after year, spraying chemicals, broad spectrum antibiotics etc! Just as with humans, those things lower our immunity and make us sick!Polyculture, on the other hand, which is the mixing of different crops, has natural variation and a likelihood that one or more of the crops will be resistant to any particular pathogen. Studies have shown planting a mixture of crop strains in the same field to be effective at combating disease.
@kiwimon
Posted on 28-09-2011 19:50 | By pieceofshirt
Hmmm, are you suggesting I plant cabbages under my kiwifruit, under my apple trees, under jacks beanstalk...too much work-ahhh, and there it is.
Where is Tony Ryall when you need him?
Posted on 29-09-2011 06:41 | By IanM
Geneticists have long predicted exactly this kind of problem for cloned monocultures. We should not be surprised when it appears. Chemical warfare is not the solution either. The absence of comment or response from the National Government, particularly from the Minister of Health who happens to be a local MP, is simply shameful. Industry reassurances that massive increases in spraying will not harm human or ecological health have no basis in research - how could such research even be done?
No more antibiotics !
Posted on 01-10-2011 14:55 | By Antisthenes
The abuses of antibiotics are quite simple. People use them too much, and for illnesses that don't really require them. It is not uncommon for people to take over the counter antibiotics for illnesses that are not caused by bacteria, or to take them in the wrong doses. This makes bacteria resistant to that type of antibiotic, and with serious diseases this can be a big problem. It is not just over the counter medicines either. The damage caused by the misuses of antibiotics goes beyond the damage caused to the drug itself. The people who misuse them often suffer dire consequences, such as the killing of many of the beneficial bacteria that normally reside within your body, doing such important things as aiding in digestion. Unfortunately, these consequences are not mere hypothetical. Already illnesses are cropping up that are resistant to even the strongest antibiotics. The most disturbing of these is one that was once thought dead: tuberculosis. There are now over 5 identified strains of this deadly illness that are unusually resistant to treatment, and the only known cure is to quarantine the patient. If antibiotics are not used more responsibly in the near future, they may soon become all but useless in fighting certain diseases
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