The Australian Cotton Industry, in collaboration with Plant Health Australia (PHA) is currently developing a biosecurity plan to protect our industry from unwanted pests and diseases.

Australian Cotton Growers Research Association (ACGRA) Executive Officer Greg Kauter explains why this plan is important and what benefits it will provide. Lewis Wilson (CSIRO PLant Industry) and Stephen Allen (CSD) discuss some of the main insect and disease threats that this plan addresses.

Greg Kauter, Executive Officer, ACGRA.

Can you give us some history of this plan and why it was set up?

The ACGRA is the cotton industry member of Plant Health Australia so it’s ACGRA’s responsibility to manage the industry strategy for bio-security. Part of that strategy is to have a plan for the future and part of it is Australian Quarantine Services (AQIS) to prevent exotic incursions, even entering our borders. Part of the plan is also to have mechanisms in place to fund exotic pest incursions and respond to those.

The ACGRA is currently consulting with industry about the deed arrangements in regard to managing, funding and cost sharing with the Government for an eradication attempt for example that we may need to do in the future. The bio-security plan sits over all of that and is a guide to our level of preparedness in cotton for the sorts of pests that we definitely don’t want here. The plan has been under development for a year or two, convened by ACGRA but supported by cotton industry researchers, entomologists, plant pathologists, CRDC and growers themselves.

How will be cotton industry be better off with this plan compared to the past where the plan hasn’t been in place?

The plan highlights the threats that we have so actually focuses us on how prepared we are to deal with things that we definitely don’t want here; Boll weevil, Texas root rot, defoliating strains of Verticillium, Fusarium, and a number of other pests, cotton leaf curl virus that’s in the sub continent that’s vectored by aphids and whitefly; things that will cause havoc and destruction to our industry if they ever arrive in our cropping areas.

The plan focuses us on what sort of responses we would make to those sorts of problems but, even more than that, in actually making sure that before we ever had a problem that people were observant about changes in the crop and new things that they see. It focuses us on surveillance, it helps us to think about preparing awareness material, helps us to look at our training requirements and whether there are enough people in the industry who have got working knowledge of the sorts of mechanisms that would come into play if we ever have an exotic pest problem in cotton.

When will this be released and when will people see more on it?

The plan is in its final drafting and we hope to have the Cotton Industry Bio-Security Plan released at the Cotton Conference in August. We will support the launch of the plan which will be quite a few pages with an executive summary document highlighting the main uses of the plan and the main benefits of the plan.

Dr Stephen Allen, Plant Pathologist, Cotton Seed Distributors.

In the new Plant Bio-Security Plan for the cotton industry, what specific pathological problems have been highlighted and can you tell us a bit about some of them?

Six have been identified. Some of those are pathogens that we haven’t seen and some of them are related to things we already have.

There is Blue Disease which is disease caused by an aphid transmitted luteo virus; a problem in South America. It is one of their major concerns something that we don’t have and don’t want.

There is the cotton leaf curl virus which is spread by whitefly and decimated the industry in Pakistan. We now have whitefly but if that virus turns up as well it could be devastating to our industry.

Then we can move onto Phymatotrichum root rot which some people call Texas root rot. It is regarded as one of the most devastating diseases in the world. It has a huge host list, attacking a whole range of things and it looks like lightning strike in the field.

There are a few that we are somewhat familiar with such as the defoliating strains of verticillium wilt. We have the non defoliating type which are fairly mild compared to the defoliating strains which we don’t have and don’t want. They are present in the US, Europe, South Africa; they are spreading around the world.

There are other races of the fusarium wilt pathogen. We have our own, that’s enough, we don’t want any more.

There is bacterial blight. Now bacterial blight is something we had years ago but there is hypervirulent strains that could overcome the resistance we have and if they are introduced into the country would render all of our varieties susceptible to blight again. So we don’t want that either.

Obviously the best way to manage all of those diseases is prevention. So this plan is obviously going to go a long way towards preventing their introduction?

That’s right. The idea of the plan is to prevent their introduction and if they do turn up, recognise them quickly and exterminate them.

Lewis Wilson, CSIRO Plant Industry/Cotton CRC.

We have been talking about the National Cotton Industry Bio-Security Plan. From an entomological point of view, what is some of the important pests that have been identified and can you tell us a bit about each of them?

Several of the pests that we have identified are in fact pests that we already have in the country. There’s cotton aphid, silver leaf whitefly and mites. The risk here is if we bring in a strain of those pests that we don’t have here already that could be either resistant to insecticides which would mean that they are very difficult to manage or they could bring in a disease that we don’t have already for instance with whitefly you could get cotton leaf curl disease, with aphids you could bring in blue disease.

Apart from those three, there is also pests that we don’t have in the country already that could come in and be potentially devastating for us. Amongst those is the cotton boll weevil which is present in the USA and South America, a very devastating and difficult to manage pest.

There is the tarnished plant bug which is lygus and that’s a big pest in parts of the USA, similar to our mirids and again would be difficult for us to manage in Australia.

The final one is the green jassid which is a pest throughout India and parts of Africa. It is different to our jassid in that it causes severe burn to plants and could actually cause seedling death.

So amongst those six pests there are some serious challenges to us if they ever come to the country.

It sounds like they are going to be a lot easier to manage if they are not here in the first place. The biosecurity plan will help prevent their introduction?

This plan really aims to help prevent the pest coming into the country which is the first line of defence but then once they are here, the second line of defence is a very quick diagnosis that we have got them here because then you have a chance of actually implementing an eradication program before they become very widespread. So those two tiers of defence are what we are aiming at

Further Information:
Robert Eveleigh, John Marshall,  Craig McDonald, David Kelly or James Quinn