"These controls are an important precaution while we investigatewhether there are any further fruit flies in the area," said AndrewColeman, MPI Deputy Director General, Compliance and Response. The restrictions are expected to remain in place for several weeksand special bins will be provided to dispose of fruit andvegetables. Residents are being told not to compost and use a sink wastedisposal unit if possible. "We appreciate this will be inconvenient for the many hundreds offamilies living in and around Avondale but their compliance withthese restrictions is a critical precaution to protect ourhorticultural industries and home gardens," Coleman said. Key fruits, vegetables and plants of concern are: All citrusfruits, all stonefruit, pears, apples, blackberry, boysenberry,grapes, feijoa, passionfruit, tomato, eggplant, capsicum, pumpkin,avocado, custard apple, quince, persimmon, loquat, olives,oleander, kumquat, crab-apple, cape gooseberry and guava. Early days Horticulture New Zealand says it is too early for our tradepartners to begin refusing any New Zealand exports following thediscovery of the Queensland fruit fly. Ministry inspectors are examining trees in Mt Roskill and Avondaleto determine whether they are dealing with an infestation whichcould potentially cost the horticulture industry millions ofdollars in lost exports. Horticulture New Zealand chief executive Peter Silcock told TVONE's Breakfast any bans need to be scientifically justified andthere would be no scientific justification for that now. "And we would argue against that very strongly as our Governmentwould," Silcock said. "We're expecting now our trade partners to take a reasonableapproach and rational approach on this." However, Silcock said, there is always the worry that "someone'sgoing to get a little bit trigger happy" and put some sort ofdraconian requirements in place. "We're working very closely with the ministry who are talking toour trading partners." 'Anxious few weeks' Silcock said Horticulture NZ expects to find out over the next fewdays if there is a full scale infestation. The trapping for fruit fly will need to go on "for some time"because there could be "further generations" that have not yet beendiscovered, he said. "So it's going to be an anxious few weeks, I think, while we wait.But the more often it is that they haven't found any more fruitflies the better off we obviously are going to be." Asked what it would take for the situation to be very serious,Silcock said that depends on the distribution of the fruit fly. He said it would not be unusual to find more fruit fly in thecontainment zone the ministry has set up. "That shouldn't create too many problems at all. It's when we findit over an extended area that's when there would be a problem." The Queensland fruit fly has been detected twice before in NewZealand - in Northland in 1995 and in Auckland in 1996. In bothcases increased surveillance found no further sign. Silcock said the pests would be on fruit trees if there was aninfestation and there would probably be ground spraying in thatcase. In 1999, the painted apple moth, a native to Australia, was foundin the Auckland suburb of Glendene and a controversial sprayprogramme was carried out to eradicate the moth. Asked if spraying whole suburbs is possible for the Queenslandfruit fly, Silcock said: "I don't think we're talking at this stageabout a wide infestation of this stuff. So that's not the optionthat we would be looking at." Queensland fruit flies cost the Australian economy around $160million a year and are considered the most destructive fruit flyspecies in the world as they attack about 100 different speciesincluding pip fruit and breed very quickly. Email this article Print this article Text size + - more... Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Latest NZ News Video Mabey apologises for death threats to PM (1:45) Hugging 'not okay'- school principal (1:55) Pair found guilty of killing dogs (0:39). I am an expert from aluminum-slidingdoors.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Bypass Sliding Door , Revolving Shoe Rack, Rotating Clothes Rack,and more.
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