The Annual Surveillance Workshop 2019 was held in Brisbane on 13–14 March for people working in pest surveillance to engage with each other as part of the newly established Plant Surveillance Network Australasia-Pacific. The workshop was attended by 62 people from several plant industries, the Australian government, state governments, research agencies and New Zealand.

There was a wide range of presentations given on topics including industry led surveillance, general surveillance, plant pest interception information and pathways for pest movement. Attendees were also updated on the progress of the Network’s initiatives including development of a website and identification of opportunities for professional development.

During the workshop the attendees had an opportunity to provide input on the:

• key roles, themes and functions in the National Surveillance Capability Framework
• communication mechanisms and tools needed to improve awareness on pest pathways
• opportunities and challenges to improving the national capability for data capture
• direction of the plant surveillance network into the future.

The Australian and state governments and the beekeeping industry participated in Exercise Bee Prepared this year to improve their readiness to respond to a detection of varroa mite (Varroa destructor).

For the exercise, Plant Health Australia facilitated a series of activities and discussion workshops to test the response to a detection of this serious pest of honey bees.

The enthusiasm of the 275 participants helped make the exercise a success.

Between March and October 2018, the Australian Government and each state and territory government hosted an Exercise Bee Prepared activity to test varroa response arrangements and availability of resources.

Participants worked together on a fictional scenario to develop a response strategy to eradicate varroa mite from a peri-urban environment.

Several aspects in the response were identified that consistently posed challenges to the groups.

The Chief Plant Health Managers and Australian Honey Bee Industry Council representatives assessed these elements at a national workshop to decide on an appropriate response.

A consolidated report on the outcomes of Exercise Bee Prepared is expected to be released in early 2019.

For additional information about Exercise Bee Prepared, please email training@phau.com.au.

Post-harvest is the perfect time to do three simple on-farm hygiene jobs to protect your stored grain from pests.

Kym McIntyre from the Grains Farm Biosecurity Program advises that over summer is a good time to clean your unused grain storage and handling equipment and clear piles of grain residues on your farm.

“Hygiene is an essential step to ensure grain on your farm is kept ready for market in a safe, insect free environment,” explained Kym.

“For example, it is important to make sure old grain residues are not left piled up on your farm.

“Storage pests will breed in these piles and may fly up to 1 km back to stored grain and infest it again.”

“To prevent this, bury, burn or spread out the residues in the paddock to less than 20mm deep.”

When it comes to unused storage facilities, Philip Burrill from the National Stored Grain Extension Program said the first step is to clean out all grain residues.

“You can then apply structural treatments to the empty storage such as diatomaceous earth (DE), commonly known as Dryacide™,” said Philip.

“DE can provide a non-chemical option for a structural treatment and it only requires a very fine layer along the inside surfaces of the silo.

“The fine hard particles of the DE get into the joints of the insect, irritating their waxy exoskeleton and causing them to die of dehydration.”

Philip also emphasised that it is important to clean any grain handling equipment as grain left behind in the equipment provides an ideal place for insects to breed between harvests.

A trial done in Queensland found that a header thought to be clean at the end of the previous year had more than 1000 lesser grain borer insects in the first 40 litres of grain to run through it at the beginning of harvest.

“This shows how a small amount of grain residue can allow insects to breed and subsequently infest freshly harvested grain,” said Philip.

As it is impossible to remove all the grain residues from equipment without a major overhaul he recommends putting a small amount of DE into the harvester or handling equipment.

“Run the machine for a few minutes to distribute it through” Philip explained.

“Ideally, this should be done after harvest and again one month prior to the next harvest.”

The Plant Health Australia (PHA) office will be closed from the afternoon of Friday 21 December 2018 until Wednesday 2 January 2019.

The Board and staff of PHA wish you all a happy Christmas and a safe holiday season.

In the event of an emergency plant pest incident or for any other urgent matters, please contact:

Greg Fraser, Executive Director and CEO, 0419 503 315 or gfraser@phau.com.au

Susanna Driessen, General Manager, Emergency Response and Preparedness, 0418 481 751 or sdriessen@phau.com.au

Rod Turner, General Manager, Preparedness and RD&E, 0414 552 300 or rturner@phau.com.au

The Board and staff of Plant Health Australia (PHA) would like to thank all members who took the time to complete our survey, in which they were asked to rate the performance of PHA programs, communication activities and other initiatives.

The online survey and several in depth interviews were done in mid-2018, following up on previous surveys in 2015 and 2012.

PHA members currently include 40 plant industry bodies, the Australian Government, and all state and territory governments. There are also 12 associate member organisations with an interest in plant biosecurity.

Our members have given us a positive score in our latest survey, with several ratings having increased steadily over time, such as:

• 96 per cent of members now rate their working relationship with us as good or excellent.
• 91 per cent of those surveyed now rate PHA’s overall performance as good or excellent.

Members also rated the following higher than 90 per cent:

• information dissemination
• consultation on issues
• leadership in discussions and brokering solutions
• emergency management.

Members still see PHA’s role in facilitating government-industry partnerships and administering the EPPRD as top priorities, along with identifying exotic pest threats.

The main activities members have been doing to strengthen the biosecurity system since the last survey were dissemination of information to growers and the public (85%), raising grower awareness and industry liaison (both 79%).

Identifying potentially high-risk sites for entry and establishment of exotic forest pests is underway through a pilot national forest pest surveillance program.

Forest Biosecurity Coordinator, Paco Tovar, says that there are pilot projects running in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

“These projects will allow us to quantify the level of effort and resources needed to detect incursions of exotic forest pests before they become established.

There are 20 exotic forest pests deemed to be of high risk to Australian forests, with 15 likely to cause significant damage if introduced. (See the Plantation forestry page in the Industry section of the PHA website.)

“Early detection of exotic forest pests is crucial for eradication efforts to be successful and cost efficient,” explains Paco.

“Another project is analysing the high-risk pathways where exotic pests are most likely to enter Australia to allow us to target our surveillance efforts to those points of entry.”

A summary of the latest progress report for the Establishing a National Forest Pest Surveillance Program is available. This project is implementing the core recommendations of the National Forest Biosecurity Surveillance Strategy.

Exercise Fastidious has begun in Brisbane today (14 November 2018). The exercise, funded by Hort Innovation, will test the response to the detection of Xylella fastidiosa, with a focus on the production nursery sector.

Participants will be asked to consider the technical feasibility eradication, complexes (e.g. the combination of Xylella and an insect vector), and whether there are any Australian native insect vectors of the disease. They will also develop a response strategy and translate this into a Response Plan.

There are 60 attendees at the two-day exercise with representatives from the Australian Government, all state and territory governments, 13 industries, PHA, Hort Innovation, CSIRO and five representatives from New Zealand (government and industry).

More information on Xylella

• Xylella (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources)
• Xylella fastidiosa (Plant Health Australia)

Growers, agronomists, extension professionals and international researchers gathered at a recent series of workshops to improve preparedness for a high priority exotic fly pest, spotted wing drosophila.

Plant Health Australia, CESAR and Plant & Food Research New Zealand are working together on a Hort Innovation funded project to improve the preparedness of horticultural industries for the exotic fly.

The project has two main goals. The first is to increase the chance that the exotic pest would be promptly detected and reported by increasing both awareness and knowledge of the pest. The second is to improve Australia’s capacity to respond to an incursion of the fly.

The first awareness and education activities, a series of workshops, were run between 30 October and 2 November.

International researchers Professor Rufus Isaacs from Michigan State University, USA, and Benthan Shaw from East Malling Research, UK, shared their knowledge about identifying and managing the pest.

Over the four days, workshops were held in four different states. The tour began in Wandin, Victoria, on 30 October. Events were also held in Launceston (Tas), Coffs Harbour (NSW) and Caboolture (Qld).

These workshops are just the first stage of a larger project which will review potential entry pathways for spotted wing drosophila and build Australia’s capacity to deal with the potential impacts of the pest.

At the end of October, Plant Health Australia’s Executive Director and CEO, Greg Fraser, and other staff spent two days in Melbourne facilitating a workshop for a project to develop a plant pest surveillance network in Australia’s botanic gardens and arboreta.

Head of Seed Conservation and Plant Health at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), Katherine O’Donnell, visited from the UK to speak at the workshop. Following the workshop in Melbourne, Katherine visited Canberra to see the National Arboretum and the Australian National Botanic Gardens.

While in Canberra she visited the PHA offices and spoke to staff about her work at BGCI and with the International Plant Sentinel Network (IPSN).

The network links botanic gardens and arboreta, plant protection organisations, and plant health scientists around the world to provide an early warning system of new and emerging pest and pathogen risks.

It is estimated that the approximately 3000 botanic gardens worldwide house 30-40% of known plant species providing significant opportunities for plant pest surveillance.

Botanic gardens have non-native species in their collections that can act as sentinel plants, showing how the species is impacted by pests that may not be present in the plant’s native country or area.

For example, PHA’s connections with the network have already proven useful in determining risks to Melaleuca alternifolia, the species of tea tree that’s grown commercially in Australia to produce oil.

During the development of the tea tree industry biosecurity plan, advice was sought from the IPSN via Katherine on any information about the susceptibility of plants growing in botanic gardens and arboreta overseas that might help guide the pest prioritisation process undertaken in the development of the plan.

Tea tree is also susceptible to myrtle rust, which is now in Australia, but should more virulent strains of the disease be found on plants overseas, we could be notified, and appropriate measures be taken.

In her presentation she also shared insights on the role that botanic gardens can play in biosecurity and the early detection of exotic pests.

“Botanic gardens don’t generally focus on plant health or have diagnosticians, but they do have experienced staff with a wealth of knowledge,” explained Katherine.

“Staff know when a plant doesn’t look healthy,” she said.

Katherine emphasised that when assessing initiatives that they need to investigate “what it is that botanic gardens can really do, as some of them have quite limited resources.”

One recent initiative was a citizen science project referred to as the #Spittlebug Hunt, which used the Twitter tag to receive tweets that eventually identified 86 plants that may be at risk from Xylella.

The spittlebug larvae deposit characteristic ‘cuckoo spit’ when feeding, which is easier to identify than a Xylella infected plant, so they used the spittlebug which is a vector of Xylella to identify possible at-risk plants.

By using social media to engage people, they were able to answer important questions about the potential impact of Xylella on species growing in the botanic gardens.

There were three events related to forest biosecurity in August and September 2018. They were:

• Environment and Invasives Committee, Perth on 15 August 2018
• Forest Health and Biosecurity R&D Workshop, Melbourne on 29-30 August 2018
• Biosecurity for Healthy Forests Session, Canberra on 5 September.

Forest biosecurity considered by Environment and Invasives Committee

A workshop was held in Perth on 15 August 2018 to engage with the environmental biosecurity policy leaders that form part of the Environment and Invasives Committee.

The workshop aimed to:

• outline the benefits to the environment of the National Forest Biosecurity Surveillance Strategy and Implementation Plan
• generate discussion on how environment stakeholders may engage with forest biosecurity activities
• determine mechanisms for collaboration between environmental biosecurity stakeholders and forest biosecurity groups.

Forest Health and Biosecurity R&D Workshop

Building on previous work done to develop the National Forest Biosecurity Surveillance Strategy and Implementation Plan, a two-day workshop was held in Melbourne on 29-30 August 2018. The workshop was a gathering of forest health and biosecurity technical expertise and stakeholders from across Australia, who discussed key R&D activities and investment necessary to protect the economic, environmental and amenity values of Australia’s forests.

Biosecurity for Healthy Forests Session

On 5 September in Canberra there was a session at the joint conference of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and Australian Forest Growers to highlight the importance and benefits of biosecurity to protect the environmental, amenity and economic values of Australia’s forests. Leading forest health and biosecurity experts covered topics including:

• the exotic pest risks that threaten Australia’s forests
• economic benefits of undertaking biosecurity and forest health activities
• an explanation of methods used to improve detection and response to exotic forest pests
• Australia’s strategic plan to implement a forest biosecurity surveillance program.

For more information about forest surveillance activities, contact Paco Tovar at ftovar@phau.com.au