Supporting Clean Plants

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

Recently, Senator Maria Cantwell spent some time in Central Washington where she toured several ag facilities including the Inland Desert Nursery in Benton City. She was joined by several other industry leaders including Gary Grove from WSU-IAREC, who is on the front lines when it comes to making sure vineyard and orchard stock is clean. He thanked Senator Cantwell for her support of the recent Farm Bill.

GROVE: How it benefits us at WSU-Prosser; there are many ways but two of them as the Clean Plant Center Northwest and the Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The Clean Plant Center NW was formed as a result of funding in 2008 that had since expired and we had gone through some pretty rough times but that to our people that govern us that appears to be over.

Grove says that goes beyond wine grapes.

GROVE: It also applies to hops and tree fruit and incidentally we have very severe viral problem on hop. One is - well it’s not really a virus but it’s called Hop Stunt Viroid and we have a very diverse portfolio virus that affect cherry production.

Tomorrow Grove will talk about the Specialty Crop Research Initiative and how it has been helping fruit growers in the Pacific Northwest.

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