Plant nursery networks: Suitability of existing pathogen data and opportunities for new data collection to parameterise a plant nursery network model

The movement of live plants through professional nurseries is known to be an effective means to disseminate plant pathogens. The aim of the Biosecurity Network Interventions project is to develop a network model linked with the potential for pathogen spread through nursery pathways. Ultimately the model will allow stakeholders to identify opportunities for interventions to either contain or slow the rate of spread of unwanted pathogens, thereby providing methods to safeguard New Zealand’s plant-based economy.

The objective of this report is to review the suitability of existing pathogen data for plant nursery networks, highlight the gaps that exist with the current data and identify opportunities or methods to generate new data to parametrise or validate models.