Some good news: NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) scientists still haven’t found what they are looking for.

This is good news because they are looking for economically important exotic plant pests in the Sydney Basin that might have sneaked past the first line of quarantine defence and established themselves in local market or backyard gardens.

"The pests that might make their way into Australia include insects and mites, and also fungal and bacterial diseases," says DPI entomologist Dr Deborah Kent.

"The project, funded from an Australian Government budget initiative called Securing the Future, has played an important part in assisting State governments to implement pre-emptive surveillance in urban high-risk sites.

"In the past Australia has only had limited national surveillance capacity for detecting incursions of new plant pests past the quarantine barrier.

"If new incursions can be detected and controlled at an early stage at relatively low cost, the small amount expended on pre-emptive surveillance will provide great benefits to Australia and NSW’s agriculture, environment and people.

"The increased globalisation of trade brings an increasing risk of exotic invertebrates and diseases being introduced into Australia and particularly NSW.

"Sydney is the major entry point for most passengers and freight entering Australia.

"Given the high flow of passengers and freight through Sydney, increased surveillance is justified in the greater Sydney urban area."

Dr Kent said the aims of the program have been to survey high risk sites within the Sydney Basin, collect information on the status of specific pests and diseases and the location of host plants within the Sydney Basin and promote community awareness of the importance of reporting suspect exotic pests.

Pests the program targeted in NSW included tramp ants such as the Red Imported Fire Ant and Yellow Crazy Ant, Citrus Longicorn Beetle, Khapra beetle (considered to be one of the most serious pests of grain in the world), Asian Gypsy Moth, Malaysian Fruit Fly, Glassy Winged Sharpshooter, Giant African Snail, and Varroa and Bee Tracheal mites.

Target diseases included a selection of rusts including Guava or Eucalyptus Rust, Grapevine Rust, Apple and Pear rust, Pine Blister Rusts and the bacterial diseases Fire Blight, Citrus Canker and Olive Knot.

"The surveillance methods used in NSW included direct observations of host plants for pests, diseases or the damage resulting from them along with trapping activities designed either to augment existing surveillance programs or explore techniques not previously used within the Sydney urban area," Dr Kent said.

"Entomology and plant pathology staff from the Agricultural Scientific Collections Unit at Orange and entomology staff based at Forest Resources Research, West Pennant Hills, conducted the operation."

The NSW surveillance effort emphasised the importance of targeting pests on the basis of their pathway into Australia, the habitat that they prefer and whether or not they could be detected.

"In most States, including NSW, surveillance was carried out in the vicinity of quarantine approved premises, as well as suburban areas surrounding such sites," Dr Kent said.

"In addition, high profile public sites such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Taronga Zoo and Darling Harbour were also surveyed as they are considered possible sites for exotic pest and disease incursions due to their high tourist turnover.

"No targeted economically important exotic plant pests were found during the surveys but that doesn’t mean that we came away empty handed.

"In addition to extending the range of some known exotic pests, we did find two exotic bugs not associated with agriculture or forestry but not previously recorded in Australia.

"The first was a plant hopper from palm trees in the Royal Botanic Gardens and the second a lace bug infesting London plane trees in Hyde Park.

"We also found a new native pest in the form of an undescribed species of psyllid causing damage on eggplants in a backyard garden."

Contact Deborah Kent, West Pennant Hills, (02) 9872 0133 deborah.kent@dpi.nsw.gov.au

Further reading

Insect pests