The kiwifruit vine killing disease PSA has spread outside the Te Puke area, with two orchards near Tauranga and one at Waihi now infected.
Kiwifruit Vine Health on Thursday reported 55 per cent of land planted in gold and gold organic kiwifruit in the priority zone had the disease Pseudomonas syringae pv. Actinidiae, or PSA.
In all, 18 new orchards were identified with PSA during the past week, bringing the total of infected orchards to 262.
All but three are in the Te Puke region.
The PSA infection is also confirmed in the orchard of the man in charge of combating it.
Kiwifruit Vine Health chairman John Burke owns a five-hectare gold kiwifruit orchard near Te Puke and PSA was confirmed there this week, the Sunlive website reported.
Kiwifruit exports are worth about $1 billion a year, but the disease has the potential to devastate many orchards and see countries ban imports.
Mr Burke says growers need to decide whether they are going to pollinate their vines for next year's crop.
A grower with really heavy infection could probably make the decision quite easily to cut their vines off, or pull them out by the roots, depending on the level of infection, he says.
"A lot of them will go for cutting below the graft and looking to graft on something else onto that stump."
However, they have to decide what they graft on to the stump and gold is not an option.
PSA could mean the end of the kiwifruit gold variety, he says.
"It seems a weak plant."
NZN