Biosecurity Tasmania’s Plant Diagnostic Services will be conducting a bioblitz in early April. The activity forms part of the Boosting Diagnostic Capacity for Plant Production Industries Project.

This activity is an opportunity for agronomists and growers to have pests, diseases and beneficials in crops identified, and to learn about sampling techniques, sample submission, and biosecurity pests. There is no cost for this activity.

This activity will consist of two components:

1. A demonstration bioblitz event will be held on Monday 11 April 2022 at the cover crop trial site at Hagley Farm School. The cover crop at this site will be sampled for pests, diseases and beneficials using a number of sampling techniques. Potential participants are welcome to attend to discuss pest and disease queries or sampling techniques.
2. Participants are encouraged to undertake sampling on crops they manage and submit samples to Plant Diagnostic Services using a provided sample submission kit. Sampling techniques will be a subset of techniques used in the demonstration event and include yellow sticky traps, visual inspection and collection of leaf samples for submission.

Participants will receive a report identifying the pests and diseases submitted.

A bioblitz is a survey that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area or crop over a short period of time. This will give a snapshot of what currently exists in the surveyed crop types and will serve to enhance other surveillance activities that help demonstrate the freedom of key pests and identify local pests as well as predators that may also be present.

This bioblitz will target a range of annual crops.  Examples of some suitable crops would include potatoes and brassica vegetables, as well as other brassica crops such as canola, forage brassicas, cover crops.

For more information, please contact Ian Parr on email at ian.parr@nre.tas.gov.au or at 0426 892 466.