KVH congratulates Riversun Nursery owner, Geoff Thorpe, who was made an Officer of The New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the New Year Honours list.

Geoff’s award is for services to the wine industry, including his roles in introducing accredited virus testing, more than 120 new varieties and clones to the wine industry, and independently audited grapevine certification (resulting in the 2012 New Zealand Winegrowers Grafted Grapevine Standard). Riversun Nursery is also part of the Kiwifruit Plant Certification Scheme (KPCS), and Geoff has worked closely with KVH from early days to assist development of the KPCS (and the predecessor “KVH registered nursery” scheme), sharing his expertise and experience with grapevine and avocado plant certification. Geoff’s laboratory, Linnaeus Laboratory, also provided diagnostic capability during early stages of the Psa-V response and has carried out various research trials for Zespri and KVH that contributed to the Psa-V research effort.