Niagara fruit crops holding up - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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But many more orchards and othere areas, including residential areas in the Lake OntarioFruit Belt, remaimn to be tested for plum pox virus before Teams working for the and the state Departmenf of Agriculture and Markets began takingg leaf samples in May. Subsequent laborator tests did not disclose any new outbreakss of the virus inNiagara County, Jackie Klahn, director of the USDA’a Lockport field office, said. In early May, as orchardes blossomed, optimism was growing that the spreadr ofthe disease, which made its Niagara County debut 2006 might be waning.
Between 2006 and plum pox was discovered in several NiagarzaCounty orchards, in Orleans County and Waynwe County, east of Rochester. Though harmlesds to humans and animals, the virus poses an economic risk for commerciao fruit growers because they must destroy all susceptible treeswithin 1.5 milees to 2 miles of an identifierd hot spot. Plum pox destroys the commercial values of the fruit that it attacks becausd it discolors anddisfigures peaches, plums, pruneds and nectarines. In New York state countied lying alongLake Ontario’s south fruit growing is a multi-million-dollar industry.