Crown science company HortResearch says it will press ahead with its own quarantine station for high-risk vine imports, despite a private nursery's plan to offer the same service to grapegrowers.
HortResearch's new pipfruit varieties manager, Alan White, said the institute's plans to add a level-three quarantine glasshouse to its Havelock North
complex would not be affected by the private enterprise proposal.
The Gisborne-based Riversun Nursery, New Zealand's largest grapevine nursery, is setting up its own new level-three quarantine and diagnostic service for growers, by leasing a high-risk glasshouse in the Bay of Plenty managed by a forestry propagation company.
Riversun will also offer a full diagnostic service through its own Gisborne laboratory.
Level-one quarantine is for open ground, level-two is for material that has been through MAF-approved nurseries overseas and level- three is for material from overseas which has still to go through a series of viral tests.
Riversun managing director Geoff Thorpe said his company would quarantine 50 new clones over the next two years.
Most of the space for the 50 clones had already been committed and propagation of the material once it came out of quarantine would be by Riversun only.
"In two years' time, when this material comes out of quarantine, we will have a look at whether we change that, but at this stage all the space is just about committed."
The 50 new grape clones going through quarantine would take care of most of the backlog of demand for new grapes, he said.
But Thorpe suggested the Riversun project would not cut across HortResearch's efforts, if the crown science company could get support from importing groups.
White said the HortResearch level-three quarantine building, to be run alongside the existing level-two facility, would handle a wide range of trees, including kiwifruit, pipfruit and stonefruit, berries, and some forest trees.
HortResearch would provide the service for other importers, who would be free to carry out their own propagation once the material had been cleared.
- NZPA
