THE Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries’ handling of the virus that devastated the $60 million Northern Territory melon industry in 2014 will receive international recognition as part of research funding announced on February 4.
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Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus, which infects cucurbit species, including melons, crippled the industry in Katherine after it was detected in September 2014, with affected growers forced to burn and bury their crops.
However, the work the department has done over the past 17 months to understand and contain the outbreak has been rewarded with a $1.2m research grant from Horticulture Innovation Australia.
The funding boost will allow scientists at the Berrimah Research Farm – which is currently battling its own outbreak of CGMMV – to explore the viability of the virus in soil and plant debris, improve on-farm diagnostics for CGMMV and seed testing, and share the results with the international community.
Primary Industry and Fisheries Minister Willem Westra van Holthe said the announcement paid tribute to the painstaking approach the NT government and melon growers had taken towards biosecurity.
“This research will put the Northern Territory on the international map as far as research into CGMMV,” he told the Katherine Times.
“With $1.2 million coming in … it will mean our research scientists at [Berrimah] can research CGMMV, not just for the local industry, but these results will be used and published Australia wide and internationally.”
Mr Westra van Holthe said he believed the initial reaction to the outbreak had been a biosecurity success, rather than a failure.
“I don’t think this has damaged the Northern Territory’s reputation interstate, because we have moved quickly and decisively,” he explained.
“We probably, in fact, enhanced our reputation.”
HIA research, marketing and investments general manager David Moore echoed the sentiment and said the research would “give Australia the best possible chance to learn more about what it is we are dealing with and how to better manage it to prevent the spread of CGMMV to uninfected states”.
In an additional win for impacted growers, Mr Westra van Holthe confirmed speculation that quarantine restrictions in the Katherine region would be lifted by the end of the month.
“The quarantine is going to be lifted at the end of this month to conincide, really, with the beginning of the growing season for melons,” he said.
“It will be up to individual growers to re-establish their crops during the growing season that is about to start.”
