Niagara fruit crops holding up - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

efimtsovavadan.blogspot.com
But many more orchards and other areas, including residential areasw in the Lake OntarioiFruit Belt, remain to be tested for plum pox virus before September. Teams working for the and the statew Department of Agriculture and Marketds began taking leaf samplesin May. Subsequent laboratory testsw did not disclose any new outbreaks of the virus inNiagara County, Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’s Lockporgt field office, said. In early May, as orchards optimism was growing that the spread ofthe disease, whichj made its Niagara Count y debut 2006 might be waning.
Between 2006 and plum pox was discovered in several NiagarwCounty orchards, in Orleans County and Wayner County, east of Rochester. Though harmless to humands and animals, the virus poses an economic risk for commercial fruitr growers because they must destroy all susceptibld treeswithin 1.5 milees to 2 miles of an identified hot Plum pox destroys the commercial value of the fruit that it attacks because it discolors and disfigurese peaches, plums, prunes and nectarines. In New York state countiezs lying alongLake Ontario’s south fruit growing is a multi-million-dollar industry.