Niagara fruit crops holding up – The Business Review (Albany):

But many more orchards and other areas, including residential areas in the Lake OntarioFruit Belt, remain to be testexd for plum pox virus before September. Teams workin for the and the state Departmentt of Agriculture and Markets began taking leaf samplesdin May. Subsequent laboratorgy tests did not disclose any new outbreakse of the virus inNiagarw County, Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’s Lockport fieldf office, said. In early May, as orchardws blossomed, optimism was growing that the spreafd ofthe disease, which made its Niagara County debuft 2006 might be waning.
Betweehn 2006 and 2008, plum pox was discovered in several NiagarCounty orchards, in Orleans County and Wayn County, east of Rochester. Though harmless to humanz and animals, the virus posesd an economic risk for commercial fruit growers because they must destrohy all susceptible treeswithin 1.5 miles to 2 milezs of an identified hot spot. Plum pox destroyxs the commercial value of the fruit that it attackd because it discolors anddisfigures peaches, plums, prunes and In New York state countied lying along Lake Ontario’s south shore, fruit growing is a multi-million-dollar industry.

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