NGI Updates

Name: Green snail – Cantereus apertus

Green snail was first detected in the south-western coastal area of Western Australia in the 1980s. Its distribution in Western Australia is relatively restricted. In 2011 green snail was detected near Cobram in the north of Victoria for the first time. A restricted area has been declared around the infestation.

Green snail can significantly damage a wide range of host plants and is regarded as a serious pest. It has the potential to cause crop losses in cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, peas, beans, wheat, lupins, pasture grasses and native plants.

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Fire, flood, drought, storms, pestilence and even pandemics – Interruption to business can happen at any time and changes to daily activity need to be high on the agenda for production nurseries, long before they actually occur.

The levy-funded project, Nursery industry natural disaster risk mitigation and recovery plan (NY18008), assesses the potential for natural disasters and severe weather events to impact upon Australia’s nursery industry.

Managed by Nursery & Garden Industry Queensland (NGIQ) and funded by Hort Innovation using nursery industry levies and funds from the Australian Government, the project has developed a national Nursery Industry Risk Map, using data sets for cyclone tracks, wind gusts and will soon include live data maps from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

The Risk Map has recently utilised the Address-Based Natural Hazards Risk Ratings, developed by Risk Frontiers, specialists in assessment and management of risk across the Asia-Pacific region.

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The nursery levy’s marketing team is doubling down on efforts to promote health and wellbeing benefits of greenlife to consumers, and ensure developers and councils are planting for the future as the entire world deals with a shift in its way of life.

To support this, the teams at the Republic of Everyone, The Bravery and Hort Innovation together with Greenlife Industry Australia have developed a coordinated four-point strategy to promote the good in green with all Australians.

This approach will work to ensure the community understands the health and wellbeing benefits of plants and are reassured that the nursery industry is equipped to respond to demand. The approach also works to promote the importance of urban greenspace and continued planting for the future.

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The Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) has now been detected in the North Queensland regions of Ayr, Home Hill, further south in Bowen and in Katherine, Northern Territory.

This brings the total number of confirmed detections to nine since the first identification of Fall armyworm on mainland Australia in mid-February 2020.

Due to the fast movement and reproduction rates of the Fall armyworm, the Consultative Committee in Emergency Plant Pests determined it is not feasible to eradicate this pest from Australia.

State and territory governments continue to work alongside Greenlife Industry Australia and various other industry groups to further understand and assess host preference and response strategies for ongoing pest management.

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