The Hawke's Bay area in New Zealand has reported its first case of kiwifruit vine-killing disease PSA.
The NZ kiwifruit sector’s plant-health organisation Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) said it had received a positive test result from Gold )Hort16A) kiwifruit vines in an orchard in the area.
KVH chief executive Barry O'Neil said he was disappointed at news of this latest spread:
“Psa is without doubt a major challenge and it's having a huge impact on growers. Unfortunately autumn and spring are times of the year when we see the very worst of both its spread and impacts.”
He added that based on symptoms seen in the orchard, it seems possible the bacterial infection had been present, but undetected for at least six months.
Frequently, symptoms are not visible until quite a while after infection, particularly if infection has occurred during winter dormancy Symptoms were often not visible for some time after infection, particularly over the winter dormancy period.
O’Neil said: “Growers must be proactive to protect their orchards. Doing nothing is not an option.”
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