Alerts

The purpose of this notification is to advise stakeholders that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (the department) will amend import conditions for Prunus spp. (stone fruit) nursery stock in October 2022.

The department has completed a review to ensure that import conditions remain current and best able to protect Australian agriculture from new and emerging plant pests and diseases. In line with the review, import conditions are being amended as follows:

1. Imported Prunus budwood will be subject to an additional on-arrival polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for Erwinia amylovora (fireblight), to align with the department’s existing nursery stock testing policy to strengthen risk management for Australia’s National Plant Priority Pests.
2. Woody indexing and herbaceous indexing will no longer be used during the PEQ period to screen plants for viruses.

3. Updates to the list of quarantine pests for which measures are required to manage the risk to meet an appropriate level of protection for Australia:
   

   3.1. Removal of Asian prunus virus 2, Arabis mosaic virus and Apricot latent virus as quarantine pests as they are considered to be present in Australia.

   3.2. An additional 22 viruses that are considered to be quarantine pests for Australia, for which measures are required to manage the risk to meet an appropriate level of protection for Australia.

   3.3. The revised quarantine pest list for imported Prunus nursery stock is provided in Table 1.

In addition and as advised in the BICON alert issued on 14 October 2022, the department will adopt high throughput sequencing (HTS) as the primary method to detect quarantinable viruses and viroids in Prunus. Please refer to this alert for further information.

The minimum quarantine period for imported Prunus spp. nursery stock will remain unchanged (i.e. minimum 16 months growth and disease screening/testing).

Table 1. Revised quarantine pest list for imported Prunus spp. nursey stock. ‘*’ denotes a new quarantine pest associated with Prunus nursery stock.

Impacted clients and permit holders:
All future imports of Prunus plants will be subject to the revised conditions.

The department will vary current import permits at no cost to permit holders by the end of October 2022. We will contact all affected import permit holders individually to provide more information, including updated cost estimates for overall PEQ testing fees and charges. As these permit variations will be initiated by the department, permit variations will be performed at no cost to permit holders.

Additionally, we will contact individual importers with plants yet to complete their PEQ period to advise how their plants will be managed and tested during the transition to HTS.

Who does this notice affect:
Importers of Prunus spp. nursery stock, brokers and department staff.

Background:
The department is reviewing the post-entry quarantine conditions for several high-risk nursery stock genera. These plants are economically significant and/or carry significant pests or pathogens and are currently required to undergo disease screening at the Commonwealth’s PEQ facility.

This work is funded through the Accelerating Horticulture Market Access program (AHMA) established under the ‘Enhancing Australia’s Agriculture’s Trade’ measure within the Australian government’s 2019-20 budget. AHMA supports further development of an internationally competitive and profitable horticulture sector.

Further information:
Please contact Plant Import Operations on 1800 900 090 or by email at imports@agriculture.gov.au (please title the subject line of the email with ‘Plant T2 – Prunus nursery stock).