A banana freckle outbreak in the Top End has grown to 17 properties, three years after the disease was officially eradicated from the Northern Territory. The fungal disease was detected last month on plants at a residential rural property in the Batchelor region, about 100 kilometres south of Darwin.
A surveillance program has now confirmed the disease at 15 other properties in the region, as well as at the government's Coastal Plains Research Farm at Middle Point, about 50 kilometres away.
NT Chief Plant Health Officer Anne Walters said authorities were not expecting to see the disease return after it was declared eradicated in 2019, and did not believe the current problem was linked to the previous outbreak.
Source: abc.net.au