A calm fear coupled with a Kiwi ‘can-do' attitude is emerging as the feeling of Te Puke orchardists as they mobilise to address the confirmed disease threat to kiwifruit vines in the region.

Hundreds of people attended a crisis talk in Te Puke on Tuesday morning.

Overnight the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry released test results of leaf sample taken from a Te Puke orchard showing infection by Pseudomonas syringae pv (Psa).

The industry, led by export and marketing head Zespri and the New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated, are holding grower meetings to respond to this threat.

In Italy and Chile strains of Psa have devastated kiwifruit crops in recent years.

MAF is continuing to test for the strain type found in Te Puke – results are due before Wednesday end.

The first Te Puke held meeting on Tuesday was at the Orchard Church. Hundreds of people attended with dozens of contractors forced to stand as there were not enough seats.

Zespri management banned media who arrived to cover the event, saying that none of the issues would be relevant to the public.

Many of the contractors approached by SunLive as they entered the meeting were not prepared to talk.

One orchard manager, who was willing to talk but wanted to remain anonymous, says there is a lot of fear among those in the industry.

'We are very concerned. We would be reckless not to be.”

The man says he and many other orchard managers and contractors attended a Zespri organised seminar three weeks ago about vine health management.

He says the strand of Psa that struck kiwifruit crops in Italy earlier this year was discussed at the seminar and believes it has prepared him for a worst case scenario.

'It has the potential to become a serious risk to the industry, but managed prudently and correctly, I can't see why we can't survive this.”

He believes the way the Italian kiwifruit industry handled the infection was reckless and that is why it wiped out about 71 per cent of their crops.

Media are able to attend a second meeting organised for orchard growers on Tuesday afternoon.