11/22/06 Keeping Score on Codling Moth

Keeping Score on Codling Moth. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. As we reported yesterday a second codling moth larva has been found in a recent apple shipment to Taiwain. Should a third detection be made, Taiwan will immediately suspend all apple shipment and the U.S.'s third largest export market is shut down. The Northwest Horticulture Council is currently meeting with Taiwanese officials to try and get them to change the three strikes policy. In the meantime Northwest Horticulture Council's vice president, Mark Powers says the industry is taking action. POWERS: It's the same thing that has been going on for all season which is that people are adhering to the work plan. Historically we've had a couple of detections each season especially in the front end of the season, so that continues. You know given the volume of fruit we ship to Taiwan, these interceptions are at very low levels. Other than advise industry to be very careful and to continue to scrutinize all the fruit that they're shipping over there, there really isn't, as far as we are aware, additional measures that can be taken. Powers says the three strikes ruling is unnecessary. POWERS: What we would argue and what we would urge our government to argue is that they should reopen the market, that there three strike penalty has always been unnecessary and unduly trade restrictive. It doesn't provide additional phyto-sanitary security for their plant health and especially now given that the technical information that we have on hand and that we've developed, we can show and document that there is no need to close the market based on their dectection of codling moth. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.