Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: Passion fruit sanitary void goes from July 1st to 31st

From the 1st to the 31st of July of each year, producers in the municipalities of the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul are prevented from cultivating or implanting sour passion fruit orchards (Passiflora edulis), as well as maintaining or allowing the presence of live plants of sour passion fruit at any stage of development. It is the sanitary vacuum of the crop, established by Normative Instruction No. 13 of the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Sustainable Production and Irrigation (Seapi), published in the Official State Gazette this Thursday (6/29). The measure is valid for the municipalities of Arroio do Sal, Capão da Canoa, Dom Pedro de Alcântara, Itati, Mampituba, Maquiné, Morrinhos do Sul, Terra de Areia, Torres, Três Cachoeiras and Três Forquilhas. According to the director of Seapi's Plant Defense Department, Ricardo Felicetti, the main purpose of the sanitary void is to control vectors of the passion fruit hardening virus caused by the Cowpea aphid-borne mosaic ...