Winter

Total Quality Assurance Systems (TQAS) has been operating without any serious disruption to services. Our food safety activities have been recognised as an essential service to the food industry.

The Soil Wealth and Integrated Crop Protection (ICP) project works with growers nationally to put soil management and plant health research into practice.

Over the course of their journey from the open fields to the produce displays at grocery stores, fresh vegetables and fruits can sometimes get contaminated by microorganisms. These items can then spoil other produce, spreading the contamination further and increasing the number of food items that can cause illnesses.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) has been responding to a Queensland fruit fly (Qfly) outbreak within the Perth metropolitan area since March 2020.

Australian potato industry members embarked on an overseas adventure to New Zealand’s Canterbury region from 12-15 February, where 19 representatives from Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia gained an insight into Tomato potato psyllid (TPP) and how the New Zealand potato industry has managed this pest.

Winter is coming! No, that is not a reference to a popular, medieval, fantasy drama series. However, as the temperature drops, like the Lords of the North we enter a new season of caution and surveillance.

The Soil Wealth and Integrated Crop Protection (ICP) projects work with growers nationally to put soil management and plant health research into practice.

Key to implementing useful and strategic management strategies to control diseases in vegetable crops is the correct identification of the problem and also avoiding new problems entering crops.

The discovery of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) in cucurbit crops in northern Australia in September 2014 resulted in affected properties being quarantined in order to prevent the spread of the highly transmissible virus. Recognising the impact of the incursion on cucurbit growers, researchers in Project VG15013 investigated ways to manage the virus through on-farm biosecurity practices as well as improving the speed and accuracy of CGMMV diagnostics.