More nursery options for sourcing certified plants

The kiwifruit industry now has two new nursery options to choose from when purchasing certified plants under the Kiwifruit Plant Certification Scheme (KPCS). Niwa Nursery, located in Whakatane, and Nga Rakau Nursery in North West Auckland, have recently joined the KPCS and are now selling KPCS-certified plants. Nga Rakau nursery sells only the smaller ‘grow-on-line’ plants which are too small to be planted out directly and are usually purchased by other nurseries to grow on. Niwa Nursery sells field grown Bruno rootstock ready for planting. By joining the KPCS, these nurseries demonstrate they are managing biosecurity risks, have been independently audited, visually inspected for target organisms and returned a non-detected result for a very comprehensive testing regime for Psa-V. Eight nurseries have now joined the KPCS and are supplying certified plants and two others are in the final stages of becoming part of the Scheme. Click here for a list of nurseries and their status. Please be reminded that on 1 October 2016 the KPCS will be fully implemented. This means only KPCS certified kiwifruit plants may be bought or sold after this date. However, growers will still be able to produce up to 1000 kiwifruit plants for movement between their own properties within the same Psa-V region. Growers should be ordering kiwifruit plants well in advance (at least one year) to enable nurseries to anticipate demand. Click here for a grower fact sheet on the KPCS.