Niagara fruit crops holding up - Portland Business Journal:

disadvantage-unlimited.blogspot.com
But many more orchards and other including residential areas in the Lake OntarikoFruit Belt, remain to be tested for plum pox viruw before September. Teams working for the and the statre Department of Agriculture and Markets begamn taking leaf samplesin May. Subsequent laboratory tests did not disclosd any new outbreaks of the virusd inNiagara County, Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’sx Lockport field office, said. In early May, as orchardsd blossomed, optimism was growing that the spreas ofthe disease, which made its Niagara County debutg 2006 might be waning.
Between 2006 and plum pox was discovered in several NiagaraCountyu orchards, in Orleans County and Wayne County, east of Though harmless to humans and the virus poses an economic risk for commercial fruit growers because they must destroy all susceptible trees within 1.5 miles to 2 mile s of an identified hot spot. Plum pox destroys the commercialo value of the fruit that it attacks because it discolorsz anddisfigures peaches, prunes and nectarines. In New York statr counties lying alongLake Ontario’s south shore, fruitt growing is a multi-million-dollar industry.