Fiji leaf gall (FLG) has been a major disease of sugarcane in Australia, very significantly affecting commercial yields, requiring the resistance screening of many new clones coming through the SRA breeding program, causing the elimination of highly susceptible but high yielding new clones and imposing a very significant cost to both the cane industry and SRA.

Good FLG management by industry has now led to the point where FLG can not be detected in commercial crops. If eradication of the disease from Australia can be safely implicated, then resistance screening activities can be reduced, controls on the movement of germplasm relaxed (making for a more efficient and productive breeding program), susceptible but high-yielding clones retained (leading to higher productivity gains) and SRA pathology resources diverted to better managing other diseases. This project will address development of the best inspection strategy to provide the data needed to show whether FLG is currently present in Australia (commercial/peri-urban areas) or not.