Clean Fruit Part 2

Clean Plants Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Any gardener knows it is important to plant good healthy stock. Vicky Scharlau with the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers says they are involved in a project to make sure growers in the state are planting good stock.

SCHARLAU: Clean plants are rather than hosing them down and making sure they are free of dirt, it really is all about making sure the plant is free of any kind of pathogen. So clean plants are really the ultimate insurance policy for an entire industry.

Three industries, hops, grapes and tree fruit are pooling their resources to make sure there is an ample supply of clean plants.

SCHARLAU: So that in a year from now or even 5 or 10 years from now there’s not some virus or disease that pops that could decimate that particular growers entire investment that they have now in the ground for almost a decade so clean plants are absolutely vital for our sustainable growth into the future.

A big problem here is that some growers will add to their stock by taking cuttings from another grower and not know there many be a problem lurking beneath the surface. This collaboration will help eliminate that.

SCHARLAU: It’s (an) elimination of duplication of efforts, they’re all under one roof. It’s one manager, it’s one staff, same equipment making sure that there’s very systematic approaches to how we eliminate any kind of pathogen we might find.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.