CHECK ON FIREBLIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20070, 6 October 1928, Page 15

CHECK ON FIREBLIGHT.

DEPARTMENTAL. WARNING. OBLIGATION OF ORCHARDISTS. THOROUGH MEASURES URGED. The early co-operation of orchardists in taking precautions .against an outbreak of fireblight this fruitgrowing season is sought by the Department of Agriculture. A • departmental circular, emphasising the dangers of the disease, says: "There is a tendency to look to the department to assume responsibility for the suppression of an outbreak, whereas the blame could more equitably bo laid on the careless orchardist. Individual efforts of growers is the keyrioto of control, and recent legislation enables them to apply co-operativo effort more fully than was possible in the past." With regard to fireblight, each season might be deemed to commence with the blossoming period of fruit trees, and any hold-over canker discovered at this time regarded as a canker from tlio previous season. Apart from what might bo insisted upon by the department in cutting out and checking disease during the summer and early autumn, a definite dato should be fixed after which tho finding of hold-over cankers in an orchard would mean prosecution. This dato was fixed as July 31. By this dato orchards would have carried out the major part of pruning operations, which afforded an excellent opportunity for the search for and romoval of cankers. It was physically impossible for departmental officers to make a personal inspection of every tree and practically every limb of every tree in the locality. The only means of keeping a district free of fireblight was the hope that growers would make an individual tree inspection and cut out cankers. By means of general inspection visits by departmental officers, and more particular inspection where it was suspected the grower had not been quite thorough, the efforts of the careful orchardists would be safeguarded. These precautions, of course, could in their entirety bo applied only to districts where hawthorn hedges had been removed or otherwise satisfactorily attended to. In areas where fireblight was present and whoro no fruit areas had been declared, the disease would bo mainly dealt with as an ordinary orchard disease.