The Ministry for Primary Industries proposes removing biological indexing as a diagnostic tool from all our plant germplasm import health standards.
Biological indexing will be:
a. removed as a complimentary test to ELISA or PCR for 78 pests (where existing standards require biological indexing to be done with ELISA or PCR testing),
b. replaced by testing using only ELISA or PCR for 44 pests (where existing standards require biological indexing as the only test method),
c. removed as a test from one Fragaria disease of unknown aetiology (and instead this pest will be managed by inspecting plants for symptoms).
The Ministry for Primary Industries will also remove all guidance and sections about biological indexing requirements from our plant germplasm import health standards.
For Fragaria, Olea, Prunus, Rubus, Solanum tuberosum, and Vitis plants for planting, we are removing 25 pests from our plant germplasm import health standards. We no longer consider these pests biosecurity risks on this pathway, and we will no longer require plants to be tested for these pests.
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