Gyeongbuk Agricultural Research & Extension Services Begins New Year Work with On-site Inspection of Fire Blight Disease in Fruit Trees

Prevent Last Year's Damage Recurrence Through Thorough Prevention

Gyeongbuk Agricultural Research and Extension Services.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Trainee Reporter Lee Seryeong] On the 3rd, the Gyeongsangbuk-do Agricultural Technology Institute visited the Andong Agricultural Technology Center to start the new year's first fieldwork with an on-site inspection to prevent fire blight disease in fruit trees.

The field inspection was arranged to prevent the spread of the disease and to check rapid control and early surveillance situations after the first confirmed bacterial case appeared in the region last year.

The apple cultivation area in Gyeongbuk Province is 21,951 hectares, accounting for 60.3% of the national total, and the production volume is 277,942 tons, occupying 65.6% nationwide.

Last year, 618 farms nationwide suffered damage from fire blight disease, and within the province, 12 farms in Andong and Yeongju cities experienced fire blight disease over 7.13 hectares.

The Agricultural Technology Institute allocated an emergency budget of 4.4 billion KRW last year to spray preventive agents urgently, stopping additional outbreaks 27 days after the initial occurrence, and buried 17 apple orchards covering 7.1 hectares, including nearby farms at risk of infection, for official control.

This year, to prevent fire blight disease, the institute plans to strengthen the investigation of overwintering sites of fire blight bacteria hidden in apple trees in cooperation with city and county agricultural technology centers, and from March, conduct preemptive chemical control four times over the entire apple cultivation area.

They will introduce a fire blight occurrence prediction system to apply timely control during the flowering period, produce a fire blight white paper to actively promote early surveillance, preventive control techniques, and response strategies, and distribute control guidelines.

Shin Yongseup, head of the Agricultural Technology Institute, said, “We will thoroughly inspect the overwintering sites, which are the starting points of fire blight disease, and devote all our efforts to prevent its spread to local farms in the new year.”

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