Abstract:
Many countries have realized that import control and quarantine can be appropriate and essential measures in the fight against fruit tree viruses.
To this end EPPO is playing an important role and has several years back established a working party on certification for virus-tested fruit trees, scions and rootstocks. - The recommendations from this group have after approval been distributed to all member countries.
In the present quarantine lists of EPPO and EEC 17 viruses or virus-like agents infecting fruit trees are mentioned specifically and as an extra precaution, the following phrase is added "all other harmful viruses and virus-like pathogens is so far as they do not exist in the EEC".
In a world-wide survey for 1979 all together 174 fruit tree virus diseases or virus-like diseases were listed. 22 per cent of these have not been reported from Europe, while 45 per cent were comparatively rare.
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