Changes

Revised post-entry quarantine testing requirements for Prunus spp. nursery stock

Effective from 24 October 2022

Post-entry quarantine (PEQ) conditions for Prunus spp. for use as nursery stock have been revised, to ensure that they remain current and best able to protect Australian agriculture from new and emerging plant pests and diseases.

Changes include:

An additional on-arrival polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to be conducted on imported budwood to screen for the presence of Erwinia amylovora (fireblight), consistent with the department’s nursery stock policy to strengthen risk management measures for Australia’s National Plant Priority Pests.
Updates to the list of quarantine pests:
- 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.
- An additional 22 viruses that are considered to be quarantine pests for Australia and will require disease screening in PEQ to achieve an appropriate level of protection for Australia
- The revised quarantine pest list for imported Prunus nursery stock is provided in Table 1.
The use of high throughput sequencing (HTS) to detect viruses and viroids of biosecurity concern associated with imported Prunus spp.
- HTS replaces the testing methods previously used to detect quarantinable viruses and viroids in Prunus nursery stock, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and biological indexing.
- The department’s use of HTS in post-entry quarantine (PEQ) testing is limited to virus and viroid detection. The PEQ testing methods used to detect of other pests, such as bacteria and fungi, remain unchanged.
- Further background on the department’s transition to HTS testing is located here.

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.

Apiognomonia erythrostoma	Cherry rosette virus*	Peach rosette mosaic virus
Apiosporina morbosa	Cherry rusty mottle associated virus*	Petunia asteroid mosaic virus
Apple scar skin viroid	Cherry twisted leaf associated virus	Phaeoacremonium amygdalinum
Apricot latent ringspot virus	Cherry virus F*	Phaeoacremonium iranianum
Arabis mosaic virus	Cherry virus T*	Phymatotrichopsis omnivora
Asian prunus virus 1	Cherry virus Trakiya*	Phytophthora kernoviae
Asian prunus virus 3	Cherry virus Turkey*	Phytophthora parsiana
Blumeriella jaapii	Coniochaeta prunicola	Phytophthora ramorum and related species
Botrytis prunorum	Cytospora oleina	Plum pox virus
Camarosporium persicae	Desarmillaria tabescens	Podosphaera cerasi
Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris	Diaporthe decorticans	Podosphaera pruni-avium
Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia (prunus strain)	Epirus cherry virus*	Podosphaera prunicola
Candidatus Phytoplasma fraxini	Erwinia amylovora	Prunus latent virus*
Candidatus Phytoplasma mali	Eutypa cremea	Prunus virus I*
Candidatus Phytoplasma phoenicium	Helicobasidium mompa	Prunus virus T*
Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni	Hop stunt viroid (exotic strains)	Pseudomonas amygdali
Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum	Monilinia fructigena	Pseudomonas cerasi
Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri	Monilinia kusanoi	Pseudomonas syringae pv. avii
Candidatus Phytoplasma solani	Monilinia mumeicola	Pseudomonas syringae pv. Cerasicola
Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii	Monilinia polystroma	Pseudomonas syringae pv. persicae
Candidatus Phytoplasma ulmi	Monilinia yunnanensis	Raspberry ringspot nepovirus (cherry strains)
Candidatus Phytoplasma ziziphi	Myrobalan latent ringspot virus	Rhodosticta quercina
Carnation Italian ringspot virus	Nectarine marafivirus M*	Spiroplasma citri
Caucasus prunus virus*	Neofusicoccum arbuti	Stocky prune virus
Ceratocystis destructans	Neonectria ditissima	Strawberry latent ringspot virus
Ceratocystis fimbriata	Pallidophorina paarla	Tobacco necrosis virus (Prunus strains)
Ceratocystis variospora	Peach associated luteovirus*	Tomato black ring virus
Cherry associated luteovirus*	Peach chlorotic leaf spot virus*	Tomato bushy stunt virus*
Cherry Hungarian rasp leaf virus*	Peach chlorotic mottle virus*	Tomato ringspot virus
Cherry leaf roll virus (exotic strains)	Peach enation virus*	Verticillium dahliae (defoliating strains)
Cherry mottle leaf virus	Peach leaf pitting associated virus*	Xanthomonas prunicola
Cherry rasp leaf virus	Peach maravirus D*	Xylella spp.
Cherry robigovirus 5*	Peach mosaic virus

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

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’).

This Change applies to the following Cases:

Prunus spp. for use as nursery stock