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Grape industries still at risk from Grapevine Leaf Rust
30 Sep 2003
Australia's $4.4 billion wine and grape industry is still at risk from Grapevine Leaf Rust - found in the Northern Territory - despite a massive eradication program, the project's director Stephen West says. Officials have conducted a massive hunt across Darwin and the town of Palmerston, with every one of the 38,000 houses investigated in pursuit of the exotic disease.
Mr West said half the 600 grapevines found were infected and had been destroyed during the six months of the investigation. A quarantine zone bans the movement of grapevines within a 50km radius.
Mr West said the program appears to be working. In removing the 300 vines we have now abolished the major source of infection in Darwin, he said, but the disease could still pose a risk to plants in the southern grape-growing states.
The Courier-Mail, 30/9/03, page 10.
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