Alexandria, Virginia
July 24, 2008
Source: ASTA e-newsletter July
24, 2008
Australia recently published new
emergency requirements for freedom from PTSV on tomato seed
because of evidence that it may be a seed transmitted disease.
These emergency measures went into effect June 24 and will
remain in place until
Biosecurity Australia completes a risk assessment.
Specifically, Australia is requiring an additional declaration
(AD) be put on the phytosanitary certificate that the country in
question has been surveyed and found to be free of PTSV or that
parent plants producing the seed were sampled, tested and found
to be free of PTSV.
Both of these options are not feasible, and at a minimum, will
take months to implement, disrupting trade in the meantime. A
major constraint in meeting these requirements is the lack of a
good diagnostic test and no approved sampling protocol for the
seed.
The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) is working with
the International Seed
Federation (ISF) as well as
USDA to persuade Australia to accept phytosanitary field
inspections to the support issuance of phytosanitary
certificates.
Symptoms of PTSV on plants are highly visible and distinctive,
and other countries, including Israel, Turkey, South Africa and
Yemen, accept phytosanitary field inspections.
Another option might be for the International Seed Health
Initiative for Vegetables (ISHI-Veg) to develop a seedling assay
in which a sample of seed from the lot in question is germinated
and leaf material harvested and tested for PTSV.
In the U.S., PTSV has not been detected on either potatoes or
tomatoes for at least 10 years, but no systematic surveys have
been undertaken to officially declare that the U.S. is free of
the pathogen. |
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