High Value Crops - Stakeholder Update, October 2010

27 October 2010

Developments in Post-Entry Quarantine Activities for High-value Crops

PHEL Annual Report

The Plant Health and Environment Laboratory (PHEL) has produced a report detailing the laboratory’s activities in 2009-10 (surveillance, supporting incursion/response, facilitating trade, projects, collaborations etc.). The report is available on our website:
Investigation and Diagnostic Centres Plant Health & Environment Laboratory Annual Report Link to PDF document (477 KB)

Provision of Level 3 Post-Entry Quarantine services

During the last year, PHEL has provided quarantine space and/or testing for a range of high-value crops including: apples (Malus), blackcurrants (Ribes), blueberries (Vaccinium), citrus (Citrus), hazelnuts (Corylus), kiwifruit (Actinidia), Prunus spp, (cherries, peaches, plums etc.),  potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), strawberries (Fragaria) and walnuts (Juglans). The importation of many of these crops represents the first importations into New Zealand for more than ten years. PHEL has also agreed to provide PEQ space over the next six months for blueberries (Vaccinium), citrus (Citrus), eucalyptus (Eucalyptus), potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), spruce (Picea), strawberries (Fragaria) and sweetpotato (Ipomoea). Depending on the plant genera and import health standard requirements, various pre-determined tests and inspections are done across the various disciplines at PHEL.

Production of Post-Entry Quarantine Testing Manuals

PHEL has completed the post-entry quarantine testing manual for Humulus (hop). The manual is available on our website:
Humulus Post-Entry Quarantine Testing Manual Link to PDF document (820 KB)

The Rubus (berries) PEQ testing manual has been drafted and has been sent for external consultation.

Approval of Containment Facility to Hold New Plant Species and Exotic Diseases

The PHEL's Tissue Culture Transitional Facility has been approved as a containment facility. The facility will now function as both a transitional facility for quarantine of imported plants, and also as a containment facility under ERMA approvals ERMA200231: To Import Into Containment New Organisms in the Family Rosaceae (Rose Family) For Research Purposes and NOC09002: To Import And Hold Exotic Plant Viruses And Viroids In Containment, In Order To Develop Diagnostic Methods And For Laboratory-Based Research Purposes. This approval means that PHEL now has the capacity to import new plant species into containment (e.g. to use as biological indicators) and/or plants which are infected with diseases that are new organisms (e.g. to develop or validate diagnostic tests). It is intended to also seek approval for the glasshouse facility as a containment facility within the next month.

Changes to PHEL Costs

PHEL provides a diagnostic testing service for importers and exporters of plants and plant products where this is not available from other providers. This service is provided on a cost-recovery basis. A comprehensive review of the charges had not been done since 2006. As a result, charges for PHEL diagnostic testing services were changed on 1 May 2010. Changes have also been made to the testing regimen to ensure customers are only charged for what they use. For example, the costs of identifying insects on imported produce will be graded according to the number of identifications required. The new PHEL costs can be found on our website:
Plant Health and Enviornment Laboratory Costs

Research Projects

  • New detection methods for Xylella fastidiosa. This bacterium is of significant biosecurity concern and causes devastating diseases of many plant species including citrus, grapevine (Pierce’s disease), peach, pear, plum and sycamore. PHEL has developed a novel test using LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification) to detect Xylella. LAMP is a fast and versatile method that can be used for on-site detection. This would increase the speed of diagnosis and reduce the need to move potentially infectious material to laboratories across the country. As the test is also simple to perform, it could be used by non-specialist staff (e.g. inspectors) during surveillance, at the border or in quarantine. A second test using real-time PCR technology has been developed to enable more specific and sensitive detection in the laboratory. This research is being published in the international journal Phytopathology.
  • Testing procedures for plants imported in tissue culture: Tissue culture is a common method for international movement of plants and represents less biosecurity risk than other propagable material. MAF requires tissue culture of high-value crops to be deflasked and grown in a glasshouse before biosecurity clearance because of uncertainty about the reliability of detecting pests in tissue culture. PHEL has completed a study on the pathogen concentration in tissue-cultured and deflasked plants. Four diverse pathogen-host systems were used and quantitative molecular assays were developed for each pathogen. There was little or no difference in pathogen concentration between tissue culture plantlets and deflasked plants, demonstrating that testing tissue-cultured plantlets directly for pathogens is an appropriate alternative method to testing deflasked plants.  Maintaining the plants in tissue culture throughout their quarantine period would be an advantage because it would considerably reduce compliance costs. The results of the study will be published.

Future updates

We plan to e-mail stakeholder updates periodically to keep you informed of our progress and other relevant material. These updates will also be available on our website: High Value Crops

If you do not wish to receive these updates, please reply to this e-mail asking to be removed from the mailing list. If you know of others who might be interested in these updates, please let us know and we will add them to the mailing list. MAF Biosecurity New Zealand’s PEQ team can be contacted at: peqtesting@maf.govt.nz