Niagara fruit crops holding up - San Francisco Business Times:

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But many more orchards and other areas, includin g residential areas in the Lake OntarioFruity Belt, remain to be tested for plum pox viruse before September. Teams working for the and the state Department of Agriculture and Markets began taking leaf samplesain May. Subsequent laboratory tests did not disclose any new outbreaks of the virus in Niagara Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’es Lockport field office, said. In early May, as orchard s blossomed, optimism was growing that the spread of the which made its Niagara County debut 2006 mightrbe waning. Between 2006 and plum pox was discovered in severao NiagaraCounty orchards, in Orleans County and Wayne east of Rochester.
Though harmless to humans and animals, the virus poses an economic risk for commercial fruit growers becausew they must destroy all susceptible treedswithin 1.5 miles to 2 miles of an identified hot spot. Plum pox destroys the commercia l value of the fruit that it attack s because it discolors anddisfigures plums, prunes and nectarines. In New York state countie lying alongLake Ontario’s south fruit growing is a multi-million-dollar