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January 2025 Oriental fruit fly detection

January 2025 Oriental fruit fly detection


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January 2025 Oriental fruit fly detection

Biosecurity operations after the find of a single male Oriental fruit fly in a surveillance trap in a suburban Auckland backyard (Friday 3 January 2025) are making good progress, with no further detections.

There are now extra traps installed, stepped up checks, legal controls, special bins delivered for fruit and vegetable waste disposal, and a mobile lab in place.

Updates are posted below as/when significant developments take place.

The Oriental fruit fly can affect over 300 fruit and vegetables, including kiwifruit. A population of Oriental fruit fly would cause control costs, production losses, and some countries might stop accepting our exported produce.

KVH is working closely with Biosecurity New Zealand and other Government Industry Agreement (GIA) partners in the horticultural industry to minimise risk to New Zealand growers and exporters.

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LATEST NEWS

30 Jan 2025

Meet the team

Next in our series of team member introductions is Kerry O’Neil, our Monitoring & Compliance Officer. We started this series late last year to share more about the roles we have, and how each of us interact with you, our readers, and growers, in our day-to-day activities. I’ve been with KVH since December 2021 and day-to-day you’ll see me working with various people and groups across the industry to keep raising the bar and improve our biosecurity practices, organising various monitoring programmes, developing protocols, and ensuring compliance standards are met, so that we all continue managing biosecurity risks. I also audit pack-houses, kiwifruit processors, budwood suppliers, and pollen mills, and try to streamline these processes to keep them as quick and easy as possible for you. I quite enjoy helping nurseries wanting to join the Kiwifruit Plant Certification Scheme (KPCS) – especially working on their manuals, and organising sampling, testing, and external auditing. Before joining KVH, I worked at the Tauranga City Council in regulation and compliance, specifically with food and health registrations and alcohol licensing. Outside of work, I find it hard to say no to a round of golf. I travel a lot so next time I’m in your region I’d love to hear any local recommendations.

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30 Jan 2025

February grower roadshows

We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Zespri Grower Roadshows. We’ll be speaking at each location, providing an update on the fruit fly response and industry biosecurity surveillance systems, including recent unusual symptom reports, alongside presentations from Zespri and NZKGI. The roadshows run 17 – 27 February and will all be held in person, with an option to join the Te Puke event online. Register here.

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30 Jan 2025

Fun Fact

What am I? This week we have an image for you – can you guess the object? Our industry-led exotic stink bug surveillance system in the Bay of Plenty has kicked off again this year, thanks to industry organisations working alongside us, and as well as the standard sticky pheromone traps that have been used in previous years, some of the sites now also include one of these – an aerodynamic trap. These Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) traps are shaped like a windvane which helps the pheromone travel further, attracting more stink bugs to the area. Originally trialled in kiwifruit in Italy through co-funding from the Zespri Biosecurity Innovation portfolio, it was exciting to see this research being implemented last year on a field visit with other members of the BMSB Council, and now we’ve got eight of our own as part of this year’s industry surveillance network at 14 sites – mainly pack-houses - from Mount Maunganui and Te Puke to Te Puna and Katikati. Our surveillance enhances nationwide efforts while raising awareness of stink bugs across the kiwifruit industry and providing practical, tangible monitoring activities. Importantly, it also builds capability within the industry for any stink bug response, whether that be specifically dedicated to kiwifruit or to assist in joint efforts involving other industries. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) oversees the national BMSB surveillance programme, which operates on an entry risk basis, using lure traps and vegetation searches on a fortnightly basis during the high-risk season of September through to the end April each year. Most trapping efforts are concentrated in the main centres, primarily Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Read more about BMSB, including latest detection data, here.

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