11/21/06 Strike Two

Two strikes. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The second codling moth larva has been found in a recent apple shipment to Taiwain. This has gotten the attention of the Northwest Horticulture Council. Mark Powers is the vice president of the Council and explains what happened. POWERS: The first thing I can tell you is that there was a detection back in September and another one this month so we are facing a strike two situation with a third find closing the market as I think we've talked in the past, you know the situation there that after they find three separate codling moths in our shipments they suspend all shipments to Taiwan. Powers says they are actively working with Taiwanese officials. POWERS: What we are trying to do is to get Taiwan to change it's penalty system and that process was more vigorously this week when the U.S. government provided a technical document to Taiwan that argues and shows, demonstrates that the risk of codling moth becoming established in Taiwan through our apple shipments is very low. In fact they said that the conclusion is that there is a 99% probability that it will take 10 thousand; over 10 thousand years before a mating pair of codling moth would occur in Taiwan. Tomorrow, more with Mark Powers. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.