Chilean update

In late 2013, Chile suffered one of its most damaging frost events in 80 years—causing almost $1 billion damage to fruit crops and reducing kiwifruit export volumes by over 50%.

Further impacts from this frost event are also expected in the form of Psa-V, with the number of positive orchards expected to increase when national surveys are carried out later this year. It is expected the colder areas near the mountains and further from the coast will be the most severely affected.

Over the past few years, Chile has seen a steady increase in the number of positive orchards as shown in the graph above.

Symptoms at newly-detected orchards are often severe, leading local authorities to believe these infections are not new, but have been undetected in previous monitoring rounds.

The Chilean Kiwifruit Committee states the industry needs a greater permanent awareness to biosecurity, and orchard management complacency is the biggest problem facing the Chilean industry.