Resourcing, supporting and assessing biosecurity in nursery production (NY20000) - Hort Innovation Australia

Ongoing project

Resourcing, supporting and assessing biosecurity in nursery production (NY20000)

Delivery Partner: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

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Project update: December 2022

The diagnostic service, Grow Help Australia, received 197 samples from 55 production nursery businesses during this milestone period. A survey evaluating the Grow Help service was completed and provided valuable feedback; most respondents provided positive feedback showing the value of the testing and reports for growers. Communications to promote this free service continue in each pest of the month, state Nursery and Garden communication channels, GIA e-news articles and other project outputs.

The following activities have been conducted:

Four factsheets or pest management plans have been completed in 2022 and two webinars, all of which are online.
Four additional resources are in the process of being published and two will be completed in 2023. The field component of the capsicum post plant case study was completed in July.
Diagnostics on the capsicum trial was completed recently and data analysis is well underway. The landscape post plant case study has also been initiated at Redlands in late 2022.
A total of 800 plants were planted and a similar number of plants were destructively sampled to assess the pest and disease load at point of sale. It is expected that this trial will run until late 2023 or perhaps early 2024.

Project update: June 2023

The diagnostic service, Grow Help Australia, received 331 samples from 76 production nursery businesses over the past six months. 44 of these businesses had not submitted samples to Grow Help previously during NY20000 (during the last 2.5 years). Communications to promote this free service continue in each pest of the month, state Nursery and Garden communication channels, GIA e-news articles and other project outputs.

A number of post plant case studies are being conducted to determine if high health nurseries produce plants with fewer pests, diseases and non-pathogenic disorders. We currently have three such trials being completed on landscape plants (started September 2022), avocados (started May 2023) and macadamias (started Dec 2022). One additional trial is currently being planned for planting by spring of 2023. These trials have been very large and, combined with the high workload from diagnostic samples submitted, produced delays in completing pest and disease factsheets.

Project update: December 2022

The diagnostic service, Grow Help Australia, received 197 samples from 55 production nursery businesses during this milestone period. A survey evaluating the Grow Help service was completed and provided valuable feedback; most respondents provided positive feedback showing the value of the testing and reports for growers. Communications to promote this free service continue in each pest of the month, state Nursery and Garden communication channels, GIA e-news articles and other project outputs.

The following activities have been conducted:

Four factsheets or pest management plans have been completed in 2022 and two webinars, all of which are online.
Four additional resources are in the process of being published and two will be completed in 2023. The field component of the capsicum post plant case study was completed in July.
Diagnostics on the capsicum trial was completed recently and data analysis is well underway. The landscape post plant case study has also been initiated at Redlands in late 2022.
A total of 800 plants were planted and a similar number of plants were destructively sampled to assess the pest and disease load at point of sale. It is expected that this trial will run until late 2023 or perhaps early 2024.