No Blight Found In Marlborough

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32164, 6 December 1969, Page 10

No Blight Found In Marlborough

The pea-growing industry in Marlborough has reacted strongly to a suggestion on these pages last week that as bacterial blight had been found |in garden peas growing in the Woodend district from Marlborough seed even Marlborough might be suspect as far as the disease was concerned.

At a meeting on Tuesday convened by the agricultural section of Marlborough Federated Farmers of parties interested in pea growing, representatives of the Department of Agriculture, the Merchants’ Association, pea-processing factory and Federated Farmers, unanimously agreed on the following statement: “We are deeply concerned at the inference in an article in "The Press” last Saturday that Marlborough crops are infected by bacterial blight The position at the present time is that there has been no positive identificatic.; of the disease in Marlborough pea crops in recent years. “Though four areas sown with a Marlborough line of peas in the Woodend district have shown bacterial blight infection this year, it must be pointed out as a possibility that infection could have been introduced after the seed left Marlborough.” Possibilities given were bacterium infecting the seed or contamination introduced into the growing crop.

“There is no intention of ignoring the seriousness of the disease,” the statement says, "and very careful inspection of crops is being continued by departmental officers and others with a view to locating any infection in the early stages. “The meeting stressed the importance of farmers and others exercising the utmost precautions in preventing this disease becoming established locally. It was also felt that Marlborough should not

be assumed to be an infected district until positive identification of the disease was established in crops growing here. “The article referred to three crops in Marlborough and one in Kaikoura growing from the same seed source as the Woodend crops, and to

date no infection is showing in any of those or any other crops growing in Marlborough. “Marlborough has a jealously guarded reputation as a producer of high quality pea seed, which is sought on both the home and overseas market”