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The Product Group hopes to have some information from this immediate research proposal available for growers by January 2007.
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF COVERED CROPS
A meeting of all the interested parties, growers, consultants, researchers and Fresh Tomato and Fresh Vegetable Product Group representatives was held 31 October in Auckland. The work required to revise and resubmit the detailed project proposal to the Sustainable Farming Fund, in order for a contract to be signed, is now being progressed and should be complete by mid-December.
The project has the following new objectives:
• Objective 1: The impact of new invasive species, e.g. sweet potato whitefly, potato/tomato psyllid.
The work in the new immediate research project, commented on above, will be integrated into this SFF project for the psyllid. It is suspected that movement of sweet potato whitefly (Bimisia tabaci bio-type Q) is occurring via Poinsettias. If this is the case, information from a survey will be used to limit the spread either via direct industry to industry discussions, which are preferred, or through involving Biosecurity New Zealand.
• Objective 2: New pesticides and resistance management.
It is intended that this objective is about a molecular tool and providing an avenue for using it in greenhouses to provide validation and obtain information on resistance, e.g. regional differences. Longer term, this may result in an every day tool that could be used by consultants/growers to inform spray decisions.
• Objective 3: New biological control agents.
There is another project already currently focused on agents present in New Zealand. With commitment from commercial companies, these might be available within the next 3 years. This project will focus on sourcing agents from overseas which, in the first instance, will involve a desktop study to explore options, followed by prioritisation of “best-bets”. This potential timeframe is still to be determined and needs to allow for obtaining HSNO Act approval and all the associated costs that go with host-specfity testing, application production and the application to ERMA. It is hoped that the existence of new invasive species should help speed up the process. Despite the ‘new organism’ hurdles there is still significant interest within the greenhouse industry in fully exploring the overseas options.
• Objective 4: Balancing crop production with pest protection with pest protection for improved energy efficiency.
The project group agreed that it needs to be noted that energy use in greenhouses will be managed based on what is best for crop production regardless of the impacts on pests and biological control agents. However, there is a definite need to demonstrate efficient energy use and management. While most of the larger growers can access this kind of information directly from overseas themselves, it is more difficult for the much larger number of average sized growers to do so.
• Objective 5: Technology Transfer to growers
This Objective underpins the previous four and in the first year there will be a specific focus on identifying the best methodology for technology transfer.
To ensure that the project will be focusing on issues relevant to industry and to assure practical outcomes, three working groups have been established, that is Chemistry, Biological Control and Energy Efficiency. Selected growers consultants and other industry experts have, or are being identified for each of these groups.IMPORTS
Tomato imports for September totalled 664,393 kilograms with a CIF value of &1.94 million. This volume is a lot less than that for September 2005, which was 1,056,328 kilograms with a CIF value of $2.57 million.
Total imports for the year May to end September are 3,413,725 kilograms with a CIF value of $10.39 million. In the same period last year figures were 3,685,526 kilograms with a CIF value of $8.81 million.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS PEPINO VIRUS STRAIN IN UK
One of two new strains of the Pepino Mosaic Virus (PMV) has been confirmed in tomatoes in the UK in 2006. There were apparently 6 outbreaks of the US-2 strain this year compared with only one last year. The other new strain, US-1 hasn’t been found in the UK yet.
Unlike the tomato strain of the PMV, which was identified in Europe in 1999, the US-2 strain infects a wider range of hosts and often cannot be detected. This suggests that the other hosts could act as reservoirs for infection.
The report indicates that there are two ways that the virus gets into tomato crops, i.e. it either comes in from infected fruit from overseas or from infected seed. In the recent tests, traces of it have been found on contaminated seed.
Symptoms of the US-2 strain are similar to those of the Yellow Mosaic Virus. The effect is on fruit quality rather than yield. Non-destructive seed testing is giving industry the ability to test for the virus without loss of seed, and growers can now make decisions on the feedback from those tests. Seed treatments have given a 20 – 30 fold reduction in virus levels.NEW ERA FOR TOMATOES IN EUROPE
The European tomato industry is moving into a new phase towards an era of large-scale industrial high technology production, with high capital investment in order to bring costs down.
It is estimated that by the end of 2007 there will be 60% fewer individual growers in Holland, i.e. a reduction to approx. 200, but they will occupy more land, i.e. approx. 1450 hectares, compared to about 1200 hectares today. It is anticipated that the average greenhouse size will rise from 2.4 ha in 2000 to 7.3 ha in 2007.VARIETY STILL SPICING UP
The expansion of grower and ultimately consumer choice of different sizes, shapes and colour and flavour of tomatoes continues unabated in the UK.
Traditional round salad tomatoes, beefsteak and cherries remain the volume backbone but the specialty range is growing as supermarket buyers and chefs continue to search for points of difference. A survey of two un-named supermarket chains over the last two years show that specialty lines have increased from 15% to 20% in volume and from 23% to 34% in value.
The ultimate goal for the industry is still to grow residue-free crops.