PLANT QUARANTINE MEASURES

1. PLANT QUARANTINE MEASURES

2. What is Plant Quarantine 01. Plant quarantine is a technique for insuring disease- and pest-free plants by isolating them during a period while performing tests for the presence of these problems. 02. The isolation of newly imported plants to ensure that they are not introducing any foreign parasites. The term quarantine may refer to the quarantine station itself, or to the process of testing and purifying the plant material.

3. Present day plant quarantine is essentially a legally based defense system against new arrivals of exotic organisms called pests that compete with human beings for food, shelter, and health or otherwise threaten human comfort and welfare.

4. Why is Plant Quarantine Necessary? • A new pest, after arrival and establishment, can rapidly develop into destructive proportions • Because of the absence of natural enemies in the new environment. • Plant pest epidemics could result in the loss of agricultural produce.

5. This may adversely affects the food production or an existing export trade. • Therefore, the main aim of plant quarantine is to prevent the entry of exotic pests into the country by enforcing laws without which it is hard to obtain compliance.

6. What is a Quarantine Pest? • Each country may determine the dangerous pests that must be kept out, controlled, or eradicated by enforcing legal provisions. • The Plant Protection Act No. 35 of 1999 considers a Quarantine pest as 'a pest of potential economic or environmental importance to any area within Sri Lanka and not yet present there, or present but not widely distributed and being officially controlled.

7. The Asia and Pacific Plant Protection Commission (APPPC) has made two lists (A1 and A2) of dangerous pests to help the member countries in deciding on quarantine pests: • A1 list contains dangerous pests that are not yet recorded in the Asia and Pacific region. • A2 list contains dangerous pests present but of limited distribution in some countries within the Asia and Pacific region.

8. What is a Regulated Pest ? Some pests present in a country may cause serious outbreaks and hence continuous control programs must be carried out. They are considered asRegulated Pests How does an Alien Pests Gain Entry into the Country ? By several ways: Some are natural means of pest spread, which cannot be prevented by enforcing laws. Manmade pathways of pest spread.

9. Aircraft and ships. • Passengers. • Baggage • Plant products imported for consumption (fruits & vegetables). • Plants including vegetative planting materials and seeds. • Products manufactured from plant materials. • Cargo and containerized cargo. • Used vehicles & farm implements. • Pallets and packing material. • Mails. • Garbage

10. Quarantine Strategies To prevent the entry of dangerous pests into Sri Lanka, plant quarantine could adopt several strategies, such as: - • Embargo. • Inspection at port of entry. • Inspection at port of dispatch. • Field inspection during growing season. • Treatment as a condition of entry. • Post-entry growing and inspection.

11. Prohibited Materials • Coconut, Tea, Rubber, Rice and Cacao- planting materials are some examples • These could only be imported in restricted amounts for research by the respective institutes. Restricted Materials These materials could be imported by fulfilling the prescribed requirements

12. Phytosanitary Certificate • Is a document, which states that the material is free from injurious pests and should confirm to the plant import rules of the importing country. • Phytosanitary certificate issued by any country should conform to the model appended to International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). • It is issued only after thorough examination of the materials. If necessary, treatments are given so as to conform to the conditions imposed by the importing country. • Issurance must be done within 14 days prior to shipment of the material

13. Pest/pathogen detection techniques (01)Generalized tests very widely used Amethod - inspection of dry seed with the naked eye or under the low power of microscope. Use to identify wide range of • free moving insects • their eggs and larval stages • mites on or with the seed, weeds, soil, infectedplant debris etc.

14. (02)Specialized tests Insects • X-ray radiography has been used. • Seed transparency test (boiling the seeds in lactophenol to make them transparent) • X-ray radiography

15. Nematodes For the detection of seed-borne nematodes, seeds are soaked in water for about 24 hours. - makes the nematodes active, then come out of the seed into the water, or the seeds teased out with the help of forceps and a needle and examined for detection of nematodes under a stereo microscope. In rooted plants, the accompanying soil and plant debris may similarly be soaked in water , nematodes may be extracted for identification using nematological sieves or tissue paper.

16. Plant Quarantine Treatments • Fumigation under atmospheric or under reduced pressure methyl bromide for fruits, vegetables, plants, nuts, railroad cars,ships, wood products, etc. HCN, phosphine and EDCT (ethylene dichloride + carbon tetrachloride mixture) are commonly used.

17. Methyl Bromide fumigation standards developed for planting materials.

18. 2.Heat treatment Hot water treatment or hot air treatment are also used in quarantine for eradication of insects, mites, nematodes, fungi, bacteria and viruses. The basic principle treatment temperature should be sufficiently high to kill the associated pest/pathogen but not the host. • 1. Against nematodes: Flower buds, 44° C for 240 min; chrysanthemum, 48° C for 25 min; potato tubers, 45° C for 5 min; • 2. Against insects and mites: strawberry runners, 46° C for 10 min;

19. 3.Cold treatment 4.Chemical treatment Chemicals may be applied as dust, slurry, spray or as dip. 5.Tissue culture reduces the pest/pathogen introduction risk in two ways: (i) the size of the consignment is very much reduced since the introductions are represented by meristem tips, excised buds or embryos. (ii) the aseptic plantlet system has built-in pest/pathogen detection capability.

20. Sri Lankan situation • In 1869, a rust disease (Hemileiavastatrix)wiped out the coffee plantation in Sri Lanka. • Subsequently Indonesia passed legislation banning coffee imports including sacs used for packing coffee from Sri Lanka and it was the first plant quarantine law in the Asian region. • After the establishment of Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) at Gannoruwa, all the plant quarantine activities were carried out jointly in the Divisions of Entomology and Plant pathology of the same Institute.In 1994, the present National Plant Quarantine Service complex was established at Katunayake with the financial help of the Japanese Government.

21. Plant Quarantine Unit, Air port. • Inspection of exports and imports plants and plant products at entry points. • Issuing phytosanitory certificates. Plant Quarantine Unit, Sea port. • Inspection of exports and imports plants and plant products at entry points. • Issuing phytosanitory certificates. • Supervision of fumigations undertaken by private fumigators. Plant Quarantine Unit, Gannoruwa. • Issuing Phytosanitory certificates

22. Functions of Seed Certification & Plant Protection Center (SCPPC) Issuing Permits for Import • Vegetable Seeds • Animal Feeds • Fibre Materials • Fresh Fruits • Festival Flowers • Seed Potato

23. Pathogens detected in import consignments of plants and plant products

24. Group members:- H.M.G.P Herath AG/07/08/ 35 H.M.L.K Herath AG/07/08/ 37 B.M JayathilakaAG/07/08/ 44

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