Under the Support to Pest Exclusion in the Caribbean- Efforts to exclude TR4 in the Caribbean Project Funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/ APHIS) and technical assistance from IICA, Dominica has received the plants and supporting materials to undertake open field trials and evaluate compatibility and resistance in the final phase of the project.

The head of plant protection and quarantine service, Nelson Laville, provided details about the project's status. "Under this project, there were three main activities: (1) to assist ten islands/ten countries to develop a national action plan for TR4, (2) to conduct a simulation exercise in a high-risk country that was done in Trinidad and Tobago, and (3) to support countries to receiving resistant germplasm to TR4. This is the final phase, and this is what we just received," Laville stated. Laville described the project's purpose in Dominica, which will mitigate the impact of TR4 if the fungal train comes to our shores.

"The purpose for having this planting material at this agricultural station is to enable the ministry of agriculture staff to evaluate these planting materials, [basically] to see how they comport themselves within our ecosystems, adapt to our agronomic practices, etcetera.

"These plants are still under patent because of intellectual properties and so right now we are still in the evaluation stage in our country," said Laville, "By the time, and if, TR4 gets into Dominica, we will have some germplasm already evaluated and can understand and made available to farmers so we don't fall way back when that disease comes into Dominica and with the possible potential of devastating our banana sector," he explained.

The Tropical Race 4 (TR4) Resistant Banana plants received are now being hardened and weaned at the Portsmouth Agricultural Station and will be distributed to commercial farmers and various agricultural stations.