Mr Voss said the basis of his call for an independent investigation into plant material was that Maf was responsible for biosecurity systems, so it was only correct that these were independently investigated.
John Burke, general manager of Kiwifruit Vine Health, which requested the review, said it was about looking at Maf's processes and would not distract attention from other possible sources of the infection, including budwood.
"We want to be sure robust importation protocols are in place. As far as pollen as a pathway (for the introduction of Psa-V), the tracing report Maf has under way will show more evidence in the coming months and provide more clues as to how the disease got here and how long it has been here. It is too early to point the finger at pollen alone," Mr Burke said
Mr Voss said he was disturbed that nearly 14 months after the disease was found in New Zealand, questions on how it got here were still unresolved.
"I liken it to a highway multi-car smash with the bodies still bleeding on the road and the ambulances haven't yet arrived. There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of anger within the industry.
"Many good growers have been damaged and large areas of orchards are gone while we are trying to work out how Psa-V got here," he said.
"Research undertaken at Otago University as part of Taskforce now Green confirms the Italian work regarding the link between Psa-V in Italy, China and New Zealand but in addition shows that the origin of the infection in both Italy and New Zealand is China and not vice versa. I would think that this should place a focus on Chinese budwood as a likely source of Psa-V in both countries. China has the largest collection of actinidia budwood in the world," said Mr Voss.
It was vital the source of the infection was identified and soon, to enable the industry to stop its spread to uninfected growing regions.
"It has been shown that budwood carried the disease from Italy to France, Spain and Portugal. It's been a disaster. As Psa-V isn't a native of New Zealand its arrival here is clearly the result of bio-security failure. What isn't clear is when and how this occurred."
Mr Voss said it should be no surprise that Psa-V was found in the pollen used in Maf's research as it came from an infected orchard and had not been subjected to the normal heat procedures used during the milling of pollen for artificial pollination.
He believed no live Psa-V bacteria had been cultured from pollen which had been through the processes used by pollination companies and Maf was aware of that fact.
Mr Voss also questioned Maf's comments that imported Chilean pollen was applied to kiwifruit crops in the Bay of Plenty in early 2010 and, instead, said it was used late in the year.
David Tanner, Zespri general manager of Psa innovation has said that the research Maf carried out was on wet pollen samples (not milled and dried as is the process for commercial pollen providers) harvested from knowingly infected Psa-V orchards.
"The work undertaken by Maf was on gold orchards and Actinidia chinesis (gold fruit) males. The pollen producers will tell you that most, if not all, of the pollen produced in New Zealand is from Actinidia deliciosa (green fruit) males," Dr Tanner said.
