Managing Grapevine Phylloxera in the Geelong Region

The Federal and Victorian Governments and industry are now investing significant resources for research into phylloxera to ensure the longevity of the Australian wine industry.
 
Under the Future Farming Strategy, the Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) recently announced funding of $3 million over four years for a targeted program to improve biosecurity and market access for a number of Victorias grape-growing regions that currently had unknown phylloxera status. 
 
Through the initiative of the Geelong Winegrowers Association (GWA) we successfully applied for this funding. Surveying the region has been recently completed and the area will be gazetted as a control area next month. The final round of surveys will commence in December 2011 and finish in March 2012, when assuming no phylloxera is detected, the whole region will gain PEZ status.  
 
 7 May 2010.