Health

1
Health Consumer Protection Directorate General

• Better Training for Safer Food
• 2008

2
Session 5Practical elements of plant passport
inspectionsAlison Wright Stephen Eales (UK)
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Legal base for inspections

• Registration Directive 92/90/EEC
• Producer must
• Keep an updated plan
• Keep records
• Have technical competence
• Do visual inspection (Guidelines from official
  body)

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Guidelines to producers

• Handbook description photos of symptoms
• Timing of inspection
• Placement of plants
• in relation to rules on findings of harmful
  organisms e.g. 10m exclusion for Phyto. ram.
• quarantine areas

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Official inspection general

• Before arrival Detailed check of official file
• On arrival ask the grower..
• Field and glasshouse inspection
• The field gate/glasshouse entrance
• The field/glasshouse edge or headland survey
• Examine individual plants and take samples
• Detailed count
• A final look
• Afterwards report all findings

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Official inspectiongeneral (2)

• The field gate/glasshouse entrance
• The general layout of the crop(s)
• The state of growth and general hygiene
• The uniformity of the plants (or lack of!)
• Check for adjacent or nearby fields, crops or
  glasshouses
• May need to be inspected for immediate vicinity
  declarations
• Check for discard heaps, cull piles, waste heaps
  are they healthy?

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Official inspectiongeneral (3)

• The field/glasshouse edge or headland survey.
• Walk slowly around the edge of the field or
  glasshouse. Note any particular area where
• The growth is not uniform, especially poor growth
• Patches of weeds
• Differences in type of growth, shape, height,
  density of leaves
• Differences in colour including flower colour

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Official inspectiongeneral (4)

• At the field or crop boundary, look for-
• Discarded (or volunteer) plants
• Why were they discarded?
• Are they healthy?

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Official inspectiongeneral (5)

• Examine individual plants and sample
• Examine in detail
• Individual plants or groups of plants from
  various parts of the crop
• The roots as well as the tops of the plants
• Volunteer plants from previous crop
• Discarded plants
• Compare strong and poor plants

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Official inspectiongeneral (6)

• Detailed count-
• Inspect in detail - a sample of individual plants
  (300-3000 recommended) selected at random
• Record the number of plants affected by each
  disorder
• Note any new disorder. Never ignore new
  finding
• A final look Is there any pattern apparent now
  that you didnt spot earlier?

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Inspection report

• Your inspection report provides
• The data for issuing certificates
• An official record of pest and disease occurrence
  or absence
• Information for future inspections
• An historical record

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Sampling

• Sampling to detect the presence of an infection
• Sampling to a tolerance

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Samplingtypes of distribution

• Hypogeometric
• Defective items in a finite population (small
  consignment)
• Binomial
• Defective items in an infinite population (large
  consignments)
• Poisson
• Items per unit amount, e.g. nematodes in soil
  samples

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Phytophthora ramorum
15
Fireblight

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Fireblight

• Case study
• Buffer zone inspections