Re: Fireblight (was NZ flora)

Jerry Heverly wrote:
> lesions in pruning knives and hand shears that harbored E.a. even when the
> dipping was done diligently.  Only submerging the tools for *five minutes*
> in hot water did a good job of pasteurizing the tools.

I once worked for a pruning client who was a practising doctor, and he
insisted I flamed my tools before using them on his plants. This was, of
course the method commonly used to clean scalpels etc in the lab where I
once worked and we considered that it was sufficient to render our tools
sterile..
>
> {Which reminds me of a similar story about host plants.
> One of my fellow nursery workers, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, bragged
> to me a few weeks ago about how he'd smuggled a european barberry into
> California, one that he fondly remembered from his childhood.  Should I
> have mentioned to him that this plant is the key alternate host for pine
> gall rust, a virulent disease of pines in California?}

While engaged in lab work, I had a bit to do with the plant quarantine
laboratory in Kenya and there were constant headaches with ignorant
people trying to smuggle in material. I remember one woman was carrying
dahlia tubers in her bra! This was actually a serious offence, as we
were endeavouring to exclude some dangerous viruses from the country and
dahlias are notorious carriers.. If only people would realize the
authoritiea are not just trying to be nasty and unreasonable. Here a big
problem is caused by Samoans who holiday back in the islands and bring a
handful of fruit from a relation's garden in their baggage. Harmless
enough, you might think, but there are fruitflies to consider, which if
they got a hold would ruin a very lucrative trade in fruit with Japan.
 
Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, 
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
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