ISHS Acta Horticulturae 110: V International Symposium on Virus diseases of Ornamental Plants
ORNAMENTAL PLANTS AS VIRUS VECTORS: REGULATORY CONSIDERATIONS |
| Author: | R.P. Kahn |
| Abstract:
Plant quarantine is listed as a major category of disease control in plant pathology textbooks (Kahn, in press); yet, its effectiveness is controversial. Some of the controversy stems from the difficulty in quantifying how many times a pest or pathogen would have entered and become established had not a regulatory control method such as exclusion been initiated by rules or regulations. Pests and pathogens do enter new regions, in spite of quarantines, as evidenced by reports in the scientific literature each year. Critics of quarantine tend to add fuel to the controversy by charging these occurrences to the activities of man and the failure of quarantine. In doing so, they discount the role of natural pathways. The author has surveyed the quarantine regulations of 125 countries (Kahn, in press) to quantify the frequency which the host is prohibited by quarantine regulations because it might serve as a vector or carrier of pests and pathogens of quarantine significance. While this approach does not measure the effectiveness of exclusion as a regulatory measure, it does measure how the host as a vector is perceived as a threat by regulatory officers. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to review concepts and principles of plant quarantine in general and exclusion in particular; (2) to review the extent to which plants are prohibited because they may serve as a vector or carrier of pests and pathogens; (3) to review the frequency which pests and pathogens are named in regulations; and (4) to relate these exclusion practices for all pests, pathogens and plants in general to virus diseases or agents of ornamental crops in particular. | |
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