(Wines&Vines) - The New York Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYDAM) used the fourth webinar in the series “Clean Plants for the Future of the Eastern Wine and Grape Industry” to announce a new, state-of-the-art certification program for grapevines sold by several nurseries in the state.

Margaret Kelly, assistant director in NYDAM’s Division of Plant Industry, told the webinar audience that the new program would resurrect the previously voluntary program for the production of virus-tested plant materials that was in place in New York many years ago. Kelly noted that the Department of Agriculture started to work with New York nurseries “to figure out how to bring the program back, because there is such a demand in New York and across the country.”

The new grapevine certification program will require nurseries to screen vines for viruses that currently cause growers to lose money, with specific focus on tomato ringspot (see photo above), tobacco ringspot, fanleaf virus, leafroll-associated viruses and red blotch virus.

Kelly stated, “We intend to test one in four mother blocks every year using ELISA (enzyme-linked immune-sorbent assay) and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests. No other state tests 25% of the vines in the mother block each year....We think it’s very important to get this done right. Not only do we want to know, the nurseries certainly do.”

The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., will be involved with the testing procedures, and state horticultural inspectors will be doing third-party inspections. “Our policy is trust but verify, to be sure things are going according to the plan,” Kelly noted.