The invasive South American plant, pampas, will very shortly be sending up flower heads. Pampas flowers in late summer and autumn months and can be a significant problem for kiwifruit crops, in that the thousands of fine, wind-blown seeds produced from each flower head can attach to fruit. This seed contaminant is a reject factor and may prevent fruit access to some overseas markets. Ensure that any pampas plants adjacent or near a kiwifruit orchard are destroyed. There was a huge spike in the number of pampas seed detections on kiwifruit last packing season.

Refer to this previous Bulletin article for information on controlling pampas and identifying differences between South American pampas and the native toetoe.