An exotic plant virus that affects tomatoes, capsicums and chillies has been detected for the first time in Australia at two properties in the northern Adelaide Plains foodbowl region.
Tomato brown rugose fruit virus has no known impacts on human health but does affect the crops of solanaceous vegetables.
South Australia’s chief plant health officer Nick Secomb said it was too early to know how far the disease had spread but that it was likely it had entered the country via infected seeds.
The South Australian Primary Industries Department (PIRSA) has formed an incident management team and is trying to trace connections between the two properties in the major vegetable growing area north of Adelaide and any other potential sites of contamination.
The virus can cause deformity and yellowing of the leaves of infected plants. (Supplied: PIRSA)
Mr Secomb said it was the first time the virus had been confirmed in Australia and had triggered a national response to the disease.
“There’s a lot of work to do to determine how far it might have spread and containing it,” he said.
Various effects of virus
The disease causes yellowing and deformity on the leaves of the host tomato, capsicum and chilli plants and can also affect their fruit.
The crop itself can form wrinkled spots and show uneven ripening.
The disease spreads easily via plant-to-plant contact or through people and tools touching infected plants.
It was first detected in the Middle East in 2015.
Nick Secomb says it is too early to know exactly how the disease reached Australia. (ABC Rural: Eliza Berlage)
Mr Secomb said the global spread had mainly been due to the transmission of infected seeds.
“It’s pretty significant,” Mr Secomb said.
“It can show, in some places, production impacts of about 15 per cent, which sounds like a smallish number, but it’s actually quite significant when you put that across the life of a tomato crop.”
Mr Secomb said the owners of the properties were working with PIRSA, with control measures in place around the affected greenhouses and property borders.
He said it would not affect the other vegetable crops grown in the northern Adelaide Plains area.
It does not affect human health.
It is likely the disease has been introduced to Australia through contaminated seeds. (ABC South East SA: Caroline Horn)
Challenge for industry
AUSVEG SA chief executive Jordan Brooke-Barnett said the virus reaching Australia was “just a matter of time”.
“Right now, in the early stages, we’re just working to support the SA government to get out there, test and ascertain the size of the problem and we sort of support our growers and industry through what can be a challenging time,” Mr Brooke-Barnett said.
He said it was an added problem for vegetable growers in the area that had been hit with a fruit fly outbreak earlier in the year.
“It is certainly a challenging time for our sector,” he said.
