HortNews
	Eastern Flower Thrips Cannot Be Eradicated - MAF

WELLINGTON 19/6/2002 - Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) officials say they have found yet another plant pest which is too widely dispersed to make it worthwhile trying to eradicate it.

MAF's technical adviser on plant pest management and biosecurity, George Gill, said today Australian border officials had detected eastern flower thrips on New Zealand capsicum from south of Auckland.

Further samples of eastern flower thrips were submitted to MAF on strawberries from Coatesville and dahlia, sunflower and capsicum plants from Clevedon.

The thrips had not previously been recorded either in New Zealand or Australia, and it was not known how the pest reached New Zealand.

"Because the New Zealand sites are widely distributed and the thrips are possibly distributed throughout most of Auckland, eradication is not possible or feasible," Mr Gill told MAF's Biosecurity newsletter.

Eastern flower thrips are just 1.5mm long, but have been recorded as having an economic effect on strawberry crops in Italy and the United Kingdom, lucerne crops in Czechoslovakia and nectarines in Greece.

Their feeding causes direct damage such as skin 'russeting' of nectarines, diminished seed set in lucerne, and distorted fruiting in strawberry crops. In the United States, they have been reported as a common cause of "seedy berries" - strawberries which fail to size and ripen properly and retain a hard seedy texture and white colour.

Mr Gill said MAF had told the horticulture industry that it was not possible to eradicate the pest, and the only feasible way to manage it would be to apply commercial pest management practices.

Even though the pest had not been reported in Australia, Mr Gill said the discovery "should have a limited effect on international trade because the species is already well established world-wide".

MAF was working with Australia's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and had asked for samples for examination by National Plant Pest Laboratory entomologists in New Zealand.

"We are currently searching our own collections for specimens that may have been misidentified as the related species, Frankliniella occidentalis."