The OBGA has worked hard since the mid seventies to develop and maintain a plant propagation program which is second to none in the small fruit industry.

Over the past 6 years many parts of the program that were carried out by OMAFRA, at no charge to the industry, have been off loaded on to the industries shoulders.
Some examples of this are:

• screen house staff now being contracted by OBGA
• screen house soft costs (fertilizer, chemical, repairs, etc) now being paid by OBGA
• tissue culture to begin production of disease free plants now being paid by OBGA
• field inspection of plants now paid by OBGA

These costs have been paid by the OBGA by increasing the price of the plants the nurseries purchase every spring from the screen house.

The resposibility for virus testing the mother stock, perhaps for the most important link in the chain to producing disease free plants, has now been passed from Ag Can to OBGA. We must now pay 100% of the cost of this service that we were used to getting free of charge.

For this reason we have asked the propagators in Ontario to add $5/m plants they sell to their customers and remit to the OBGA so we can continue to provide the propagators with quality disease free plants which in turn ensures the plant material you receive is virus tested and as healthy as possible.

The future of the virus testing program in Ontario is dependant on the support of the industry.