A bacterial plant pathologist has dismissed MAF’s report into how the kiwifruit vine killing bacteria Psa-v became established in the country as a whitewash.
This week MAF released its Psa- Pathways Report which looks into the possible ways PSA made it into New Zealand.
The report investigated possible entry pathways for Psa including on imported plant material, with people, on orchard equipment, by researchers or scientists or through imported pollen.
Despite finding that Psa-v can be transported in pollen, and that it broke out next to an orchard where imported Chilean pollen was used, MAF’s report argues it is unlikely that’s how the disease, which is now wiping out the country’s gold kiwifruit industry, got here.
However, Dr John Young, a bacterial plant pathologist who worked for the DSIR and Landcare Research for forty years, says the report examines all of the possibilities, including the incredibly unlikely, and then proceeds to gloss over the most likely – pollen.
Dr Young told Country99TV that while the case for Psa coming in on imported pollen is circumstantial no other explanation comes close – especially when the first PSA outbreak was adjacent to the only pollen importer.
He says MAF knew that pollen and bees are vectors for other pathogen yet it allowed it to be imported from Chile, where quarantine and inspection standards are doubtful.
Dr Young says this is simply inexcusable and a result of MAF favouring simple, easy-to-manage regulations, that non—experts can enforce.
As of 14 December, just over a year since PSA-v was first detected in Te Puke, 28 percent of New Zealand’s kiwifruit orchards are now infected.
