FIRE BLIGHT MENACE

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1932, Page 2

FIRE BLIGHT MENACE

CONCERN CAUSED. AUCKLAND, December 28. The menace of fireblight lias caused 'much concern among fruitgrowers at T e Kauwhata this ■season. It is considered that the present attack is the ■most severe the district has experienced i S ince the disease was first discovered about twelve years ago. When the position was generally realised about three weeks ago, immediate steps were taken to check the disease, and it js now under control. Te Kauwhata is one of the districts which was declared a fruit-growing area in the Act passed in 1922 for the imposition of regulations for the compulsory eradication of fireblight, and about three weeks ago a committee of representative apple and pear growers was set up to take immediate

action. The committee, assisted by the Government orchard instructor, made an inspection, and a co-opera-tive effort was made to clean up the worst orchard. LA levy of 5s an acre on the pip-fruit growing area was imposed, in accordance with the powers given under the Act, to cover the expenses of the campaign. The levy- is collected by the Government in March, but in this instance it is not anticipated that the whole sum will be required. ■Since fireblight was first, discovered at To Kauwhata there has been a slight recurrence of it each season. It is generally considered by orchard fits that the increase' thi, s year is due in a great part to carelessness. Over the past lour years the amount of blight ihas been very small indeed, .and it is felt that vigilance may not have been fully maintained, “It will be a lesson for the future,” remarked one prominent orchard? A. Thp season has been a, pariiVuinrlv dry one. and there has been speculation whether this might have been favourable to the blight.