Project leader: Ms Inge Pietersen, Pathosolutions
Aim and industry relevance:
The ultimate aim of this project is to provide affordable and reliable Grapevine virus A and B, and Grapevine fleck ELISA kits for detection within the One-Vitis certification scheme. No locally-produced ELISA kits currently exist and due to the high costs associated with importing commercial kits, only select nurseries and suppliers test for these viruses. The development of ELISA kits locally, should significantly reduce the costs to the wine and table grape industries associated with monitoring for these viruses, and will improve the availability of reagents for viral detection. This should increase the number of nurseries and producers monitoring for diseases as well as the number of tests performed per lab.
Image credit: Shutterstock
