The Northern Territory’s plant biosecurity team will continue with a plan to eradicate banana freckle following its detection on a second commercial property. Members of the plant biosecurity team from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade met with the Consultative Committee on Emergency Plant Pests on Wednesday. They agreed that it was still feasible to eradicate the disease.
The team will now redraft a Response Plan for approval by the National Management Group later this month. The detection of banana freckle on the second commercial property triggered a review of the response plan. As a result, the plant biosecurity team will continue with its work to remove banana plants from infected properties.
So far infected plants have been removed from 14 properties. There have been 48 total banana freckle detections since May, of which 42 are located in the Batchelor and Rum Jungle region.
Source: nationaltribune.com.au