Clean Plant Material Is Critical
January 1, 2010 One of the most important factors in the establishment of a successful orchard or vineyard is the planting of clean material — plants that are free of pathogens and pests. But oftentimes, it’s overlooked, reducing the quality of the orchard or vineyard and negatively impacting production and profitability.
The National Clean Plant Network (NCPN) was established to ensure this doesn’t happen and that growers have access to healthy plant material from the start. Sponsored by USDA, the network “supports research in light of improved detection methodologies of pests and pathogens,” says Marc Fuchs, a faculty member in the department of plant pathology at Cornell University. “And it supports Extension activities in light of raising awareness of the necessity for the stakeholders to use planting material derived from plants that have been tested and proven clean.”
The NCPN serves the grape, pome fruit, stone fruit, small fruit, and citrus industries, and likely will serve the hops industry in the near future, as well. According to Fuchs, this is the first time in the history of U.S. agriculture that the federal government is subsidizing this type of initiative.
The NCPN came about when a number of grape growers approached the federal government and requested support for the grape and wine industries. “This is how the ball got rolling, and finally, in the last Farm Bill, the government decided to have a specific allocation to address this issue,” says Fuchs. “Basically, the ultimate goal is to support the competitiveness of a number of industries by providing a mechanism for stakeholders to more readily be able to access clean material.”
Initiatives
As for specific projects happening under the initiative, Fuchs and Cornell University are working to import quality grape material from foreign sources. “On top of that, we are also eliminating pathogens and pests from highly desirable material and making clean material available to the industry,” he adds. “So basically we have an importation program, an indexing or testing program, and a therapy program all together. Parallel to all these activities, which benefit the growers directly, we also started through the NCPN a project where we are trying to improve diagnostics of viruses and other pathogens that can be detrimental to grapes.”
Something Fuchs is looking forward to in the future is a foundation vineyard to help support the NCPN that acts as a repository of clean material — something that’s currently missing on the East coast. “This is something that is in the works,” he says. “Several proposals have been submitted for funding, and hopefully this foundation vineyard block will become reality in the near future.”
Fuchs thinks the program is especially exciting because it allows collaboration between growers, nurseries, researchers, Extension educators, and regulators to improve competitiveness in the industry. “What is very unique about this program is not only does it support the production of clean materials that benefit the end users directly, but it combines the production of clean materials with research to do a better job with the best possible technology,” he says. “And this is a key component of the whole program — basically educating growers who very often are not aware of the damage that some of the pests and pathogens can cause, and how their business is harmed. This is a key component — raising awareness and educating people that they absolutely need to use clean material to make a good profit and produce high-quality wines and fruits. Combining Extension research and the production of clean material is something very unique and highly desirable.”
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