FIREBLIGHT MENACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 12

FIREBLIGHT MENACE.

DEPARTMENTAL WARNING. ORCHARDISTS' CO-OPERATION. KEYNOTE OF CONTROL. The danger of an outbreak of fireblight this fruit growing season is emphasised in a circular issued by the Department of Agriculture and the early co-operation of orchardisfcs in tailing precautions is sought. The circular'says:—"There is a tendency to look to the Department to assume- responsibility for the suppression of an outbreak, and in some measure blame the officials for any failure to suppress; whereas the blame could more equitably be laid on the careless orchardist. Individual effort of growers is the keynote of control, and recent legislation enables them to apply co-operative effort more fully than was possible in the past.

i "With regard to fireblight, each season may bo deemed to commence with the blossoming period of fruit trees, and any hold-over canker discovered at this time regarded as a canker from the previous season. While the cutting out of infections that occurred during the blossoming time and later is highly desirable, and should be attended to'as thoroughly as circumstances permit,, the damagt arising from such . infections is largely confined to the particular or-ehanl in which they exist. "Apart from what might be insisted upon by the department in cutting out and checking disease during the summer and early autumn, a definite date should be fixed after, which the finding of hold-over cankers in an orchard would mean prosecution. This date is fixed af July 31. By this date orchardists will have carried out the major portion of their pruning, which .operation affords an .excellent opportunity for the S2arcli and removal of cankers. It is physically impossible for departmental, officers to make a 'personal inspection of every tret and practically every limb of every tree in the locality.

"The only means of keeping a district free of flreblight is the hope tint growers will niako this individual tree inspection and do the cutting out of cankers. By means of general inspection visits by departmental officials, and move particular inspection where it is suspected that the grower has not been quite thorough,. the efforts of the careful orchardists will be safeguards.!."

These precautions could m their entirety- be applied only to districts whore hawthorn hedges had been removed, or otherwise satisfactorily attended to. .In districts where flreblight was present, and where no fruit areas had been declared, the disease would be mainly dealt with as an ordinary orchard disease.