Second Te Puke orchard infected, says MAF

Leaf spot on a kiwifruit vine that could be the Psa bacteria. Photo / Supplied

Agriculture Minister David Carter will hold talks tomorrow with Bay of Plenty kiwifruit growers and their industry representatives after biosecurity staff found symptoms of a vine-killing disease on a second Te Puke orchard.

If the strain of the bacteria turns out to be the one which wreaked havoc in Italy, it could gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from the billion dollar kiwifruit sector.

The new infestation is over the road from where the first infected vines were discovered at the end of last week. Movement of people and potential infective materials was controlled at the weekend when scientists first tentatively identified the first known New Zealand case of vine canker on 70 plants, said Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry deputy director general Barry O'Neil.

"Signs that we're seeing on the first property are quite severe on some of the vines and indicate that the infection has been there for some time," he said.

The new property had fewer vines affected but he expected to have confirmation tomorrow of whether the new property was also infected with Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (PSA) bacteria.

Both properties grow Zespri's Hort16A gold kiwifruit cultivar, bred from the Actinidia chinensis species which is hardest-hit by some strains for the bacteria. An outbreak in Italy last season killed a quarter of the Hort16A vines in the Lazio region, and up to half the vines on some orchards, including one owned by New Zealanders.

Another 18 orchardists have sent photographs of vines displaying suspected symptoms on their own vines, and Dr O'Neil told Radio New Zealand that the number of properties being investigated was now in the "dozens".

Until there were further laboratory confirmations, MAF considered there were only two properties infected, he said. The ministry's priorities were to contain the infected orchards and to identify the extent of the disease spread.

"By the end of this week we hope to be able to say ... whether or not we have a situation in which PSA is restricted to a few orchards or whether it is wider in its distribution," Dr O'Neil said.

However, whether the disease is the destructive strain or not may not be determined until next week.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, told Parliament today that the disease incursion was threatening the stability of a key sector: "The identification of PSA has already struck fear into the hearts of this very significant industry."

Mr Carter told MPs it was possible that the bacteria was a latent infection which had laid dormant until a cold, wet winter had stressed vines, and then symptoms had flared.

"We do not know how the disease arrived in New Zealand," he said. "It is possible that it may have been here for some time ... the disease appears to only attack under certain environmental conditions".

"I will be ... meeting with industry representatives and growers tomorrow".

If the strain of the bacteria turns out to be the one which wreaked havoc in Italy, industry officials are concerned that it may gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from the kiwifruit sector, which earned $1.4 billion in the year to March.

Gold kiwifruit are the most profitable cultivar, and made up 77,000 tonnes or 21 percent of Zespri's production last season, but about 34 percent of the crop's earnings - $285.7 million.

- NZPA