Niagara fruit crops holding up - Business First of Buffalo:

olimstgon.blogspot.com
But many more orchards and other areas, including residential areas in the Lake OntarioFruit Belt, remain to be testex for plum pox viru s before September. Teams working for the and the statr Department of Agriculture and Markets began taking leaf samplesein May. Subsequent laboratory tests did not disclose any new outbreaks of the viruas inNiagara County, Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’es Lockport field office, said. In early May, as orchardsa blossomed, optimism was growing that the spread of the which made its Niagara County debugt 2006 might be Between 2006and 2008, plum pox was discovered in severao Niagara County orchards, in Orleans County and Wayne east of Rochester.
Though harmless to humane and animals, the virus poses an economidc risk for commercial fruit growers because they must destroy all susceptiblde treeswithin 1.5 milez to 2 miles of an identified hot spot. Plum pox destroyse the commercial value of the fruitg that it attacks because it discolorws anddisfigures peaches, prunes and nectarines. In New York state counties lying alongLake Ontario’s south shore, fruit growing is a multi-million-dollar industry.