Kiwifruit Vine Health has stopped paying for Psa-V testing of orchards in the Te Puke Priorty Zone.

John Burke, General Manager of KVH, the organisation set up to manage the Psa crisis in the New Zealand kiwifruit industry, announced that payment for testing samples from all regions outside Te Puke will continue.

Mr Burke said the reason KVH paid for testing was to establish the extent of the infection ‘footprint’ in New Zealand, and with the infection identified in more than 90% of gold and 55% of green orchards in Te Puke, there is now no real cost benefit to continuing to paying.