Mealy Bug Quarantine

Friday Aug 7th, 2009 37 Views Fruit Grower Report

Mealy Bug Quarantine. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Oregon grape growers are on notice…keep an eye out for the bug and don’t let him get a foothold in the state. Dr. Patty Skinkis Assistant Professor & Viticulture Extension Specialist with Oregon State University’s Department of Horticulture says so far, so good.

SKINKIS: Fortunately at this stage we don’t have a big issue or that’s what we believe at this point so we want to keep it that way and that’s why we’ve really moved forward with working with the Oregon Department of Agriculture on strengthening our current quarantine on grapes.

So if it’s not a problem, why institute a quarantine?

SKINKIS: A lot of the concern is that California has had a problem with specifically the vine mealybug which is the most invasive and that combined with the virus issue we want to make sure we keep the mealybug out of Oregon.

This is an extension to the already existing grape quarantine that restricts the movement of diseased and insect-infested plant materials from outside of the state. This new emergency quarantine specifically restricts the movement of all vine parts, including harvested fruit that may be infested with vine mealybugs.

SKINKIS: We do have some trials going in the state that we’re trying to identify if we have the mealybugs so we’re doing some trapping and identification statewide in all the growing regions but at this point we’re not sure because those traps just went out and we have not had reports of people having the vine mealybug. We have had reports of people having other mealybugs in some vineyards.