New Zealand's $1.5 billion kiwifruit export industry was threatened with "extinction" last year after being hit hard by bacterial infection, but University of Otago biochemist Associate Prof Russell Poulter now believes the industry will survive.
His optimism was based on several factors, including that the use of copper spray and an antibiotic, streptomycin, seemed to be helping keep the kiwifruit pathogen PSA in check.
The older gold kiwifruit variety (Hort16A) had been hit hard by PSA, but three other alternative gold kiwifruit varieties were already under commercial evaluation, and appeared much more resistant to PSA.
Last year Prof Poulter and Prof Iain Lamont, both of the Otago biochemistry department, and several other Otago researchers determined the genomic sequence of the kiwifruit pathogen PSA.
This research showed there was only one strain of PSA in New Zealand, and that another bacterial organism that was previously thought to be PSA LV was in fact a different organism which was unlikely to cause virulent disease.
This year Profs Poulter and Lamont and Victoria University of Wellington's Dr David Ackerley are co-principal investigators in a continuing research project on PSA.
Earlier this month, this work was boosted by a $330,000 grant, comprising $165,000 from Seeka Kiwifruit Industries Ltd and matching funds from the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Prof Poulter said "astonishingly powerful" genome sequencing equipment based at Otago University had played a key role in Dunedin scientists being able to respond rapidly to the PSA problems.
The equipment was available in association with New Zealand Genomics Ltd, a collaboration involving Otago, Massey, and Auckland Universities, and backed by $40 million in government funding over 10 years.
Prof Poulter felt "an unusual degree of responsibility" in having to undertake research under urgent conditions last year, as the kiwifruit industry battled for survival.
And he remained focused on pursuing research that would bring the quickest positive results for the hard-pressed industry.
"It's unusual for the academic community to get involved with a problem which requires immediate solutions."
In an urgent situation, scientists could not afford to have three months of research which ended up going the wrong way.
In that time he knew "the industry may have moved significantly closer to the abyss".
In severe cases, PSA could also swiftly destroy the livelihoods of individual kiwifruit farmers.
In his latest research he aims to help develop more refined protocols for the use of copper spray and streptomycin.
The collaborating scientists also want to make the best use of knowledge already acquired in the Japanese and Italian horticulture industries, which have previously faced strains of PSA.
