Disease shuts U.S. border to Alta. potatoes: AFE

The U.S. border has been closed to seed potatoes from Alberta after the plant pest golden nematode was found on two seed potato fields, Alberta Farmer Express reports.

Staff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Potato Growers of Alberta confirmed in interviews with the Alberta farm paper’s editor Janet Kanters that CFIA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have agreed to close the border to prevent the pest’s potential spread.

USDA and CFIA were in talks as of Tuesday to determine when the border would open again, AFE reported.

“We’d like it opened as quickly as possible because some of the shipping is imminent,” said PGA executive director Vern Warkentin.

Golden nematode and pale cyst nematode are both considered quarantine pests because they can reduce yields of host crops, such as potatoes and eggplants, by up to 80 per cent and can survive dormant in host soil for decades.

Both species of potato cyst nematode (PCN) have been found in 65 countries worldwide, including the U.S. Both have also been confirmed in Newfoundland, while golden nematode is also found in Quebec and on Vancouver Island.

Alain Boucher, national manager of CFIA’s potato cyst nematode emergency section, told Alberta Farmer Express that the border closure is a “cautionary measure” while soil samples are taken to see what populations of the pest, if any, can be found in the two fields in question.

Warkentin assured farmers there’s no need to panic, noting that business was back to normal within months of the recent discoveries of potato cyst nematode in both Idaho and Quebec.

Furthermore, “these were two very minute finds, one sample per farm out of hundreds of samples per farm,” he told AFE.

PGA noted in a statement on its web site that out of 284 and 143 samples taken on the two fields in question, respectively, only one each turned up positive. Another round of tests with 610 samples in total from both fields turned up negative for PCN.

The provincewide PCN survey, meanwhile, turned up only the two positive samples out of 2,721 in total from across the province. Another 801 soil samples from the 2006 seed potato crop were also PCN-negative, the growers’ association reported.

Many U.S. potato growers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho are known to rely on Alberta seed potatoes, the newspaper noted.

“It is essential that trade resume within several weeks to meet early season commitments,” PGA said in its statement.

Watch for more details in the upcoming issue of Alberta Farmer Express.