NGI Updates

Image courtesy of NGIT

How easily can you differentiate between virus and mite symptoms? There’s help out there, but does your integrated pest management (IPM) plan make use of the resources available to industry?

The call is out for nursery growers in Western Australia, Northern Rivers New South Wales and South-East Queensland to make the most of upcoming on-farm biosecurity workshops, so as to sharpen up on important pest and disease management skills.

Two workshops, to be held in early November, will provide a practical ‘hands-on’ approach to equip production nurseries with the knowledge and resources to confidently diagnose unknown plant health problems. More

Month: October

Pest: Glassy winged sharpshooter – Homalodisca vitripennis

Importance: Major importance as a vector of Pierce’s disease (caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa). This pest is exotic and not known to occur in Australia.

Symptoms: The most characteristic symptom is leaf scorch. Stems often mature irregularly, with patches of brown and green tissue. Flower clusters on infected plants may set berries, but these usually dry up. Symptoms are usually more pronounced when plants are stressed by high temperatures or drought conditions. More

How do you quantify all the benefits of green space when planning a development site, to offset against the cost of buying and maintaining the plants?

A new project co-funded by a developer, CSIRO, Hort Innovation and funds from the nursery levy, aims to find out what information on existing green space and processes for urban development and renewal is available and where gaps may exist. More broadly, it is being funded under the Hort Frontiers Green Cities Fund.

Ultimately, the goal is to understand the flow of information between those proposing a development and those making the decisions, and what information they need to account for the benefits as well as the costs.

This is particularly important where developers are creating a masterplan that includes parks that could be handed over to the local council once completed, becoming an additional responsibility to maintain. More

Attracting the right human capital to help Australian nurseries continue to grow and make a greater contribution to the entire community about the value of green life is behind the final outcome of the industry’s recently released Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) 2017-21.

The fifth, and final outcome of the SIP aims to attract, retain and empower the nursery industry’s current and future workforce through a variety of R&D and marketing funded programs.

Above all, people are the industry’s most precious resource and are critical to help maintain the profitability and sustainability of individual businesses. However, the nursery industry, like so many agricultural sectors, is faced with significant challenges in terms of sourcing and retaining the right people for the job.

The nursery SIP suggests traditional channels for finding staff are becoming less effective, an effect being compounded by the rise of online education, and that younger people will have up to six job moves throughout their career. More

The nursery industry is collaborating with a number of horticultural industries to proactively prepare for the potential spread of the Vegetable Leafminer (Liriomyza sativae) in Australia.

The Vegetable Leafminer has been moving in a southerly direction down the Torres Strait group of islands since 2008. In 2015, its presence was detected on the Cape York Peninsula and was deemed not feasible to eradicate from the region by the Consultative Committee on Emergency Plant Pests.

The project, RD&E Program for control, eradication and preparedness for Vegetable Leafminer (MT16004), has been developed in recognition of the immense risk the pest poses to Australia’s fruit, vegetable and nursery industries. Project partners include Cesar, the University of Melbourne, Plant Health Australia, The Northern Australian Quarantine Strategy (NAQS), AUSVEG and Nursery & Garden Industry Australia (NGIA). More

Phase two of the nursery industry’s review of Tree Standard AS2303:2015 is now underway, with a series of workshops to be held around the country next year, so as to update industry on recent findings and ensure any changes to the standard are fit for purpose.

The standard is commonly used by production nurseries, local councils, developers and landscape architects and seeks to provide growers and buyers with increased confidence that trees will have a long, productive life once they leave the nursery.

Phase two will be led by the same Western Sydney University’s research team that delivered phase one of the project in 2016-17. This involved measuring the above and below ground morphological qualities, as well as the size index, of 13,000 trees across 23 nurseries.

The project will continue to be funded by Hort Innovation using nursery research & development levies and funds from the Australian Government, with strategic oversight from a Steering Committee that consists of growers and industry representatives. More