THE Granite Belt has been chosen as a target area for a new research project aiming to tackle diseases using an area-wide approach rather than focusing on individual farms.

Queensland Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner said the project, which will also target areas in Bowen, Bundaberg, Gatton and Laidley, was vital given the horticultural industry contributes $1.4 billion to the Queensland economy.

"(It) will provide $16.6 million to address resilience in crops that are affected by pests throughout Queensland and other locations throughout Australia.”

The project is being jointly funded by the Queensland, Victorian, Northern Territory and Western Australian governments, the University of Tasmania and Hort Innovation - a not-for-profit horticultural research and development company.

The five-year project will target thrip, aphid, leafhopper and whitefly transmitted diseases, as well as the management of bacterial leaf diseases, by encouraging growers to approach the issue as a group in a geographical area, rather than on individual farms.

Cherie Gambley, Principal Plant Pathologist, Horticulture and Forestry Science at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Applethorpe Research Centre, said the investment was welcome news.

Ms Gambley will head up the initiative on the Granite Belt alongside Peter Nimmo and Clinton McGrath.

"For the local growers, I guess the most important part of the project will be the work we're going to do on bacterial diseases - because every summer they get hail and every summer the vegie crops really suffer from bacterial diseases.

"There's no good management strategies for bacterial diseases in vegie crop so we're going to have a strong focus locally on that.

"As an indicator of how bad it can be, the local Chinese cabbage crops have lost between 30 per cent to 70 per cent of direct loss in the paddock due to a recent bacterial disease.

"That's not including the costs associated. One of the growers told me it took them twice as long to pick the block.

"Hopefully the study will help reduce that back to close to zero as we can get, those direct yield impacts as well as the further on costs.

"At the moment we're just working out what the real big problems are and what we can do about it and then roll out some options and see how they work and then modify if they're not working how we want them to be.

"The Granite Belt is an expanding vegetable industry. It's really important the growers have good options for management so they can stay profitable.

"Some of the strategies we're putting forward is to have minimal chemical pesticide usage to try make it less impacting that way. As well as making sure they're getting product to the shelves”

The funding will also allow for the regions to look more deeply into biosecurity preparedness.

"We're looking at the industry biosecurity plan and we're going to choose out six of the diseases we think are the most important at this time and do some preparedness for that.

"So hopefully we'll get the industry ready if they do turn up in Australia - which they probably will. That'll involve talking to federal biosecurity agencies and reviewing science.”

As to the six they'll study - they'll make a decision at a later date.

"There will be three viral diseases and three bacterial diseases. We haven't actually looked at that yet.”

Ms Gambley has praised the national initiative to get the project off the ground.

"It's a national project and it's really good that the other state agencies are on board. The diseases are national so it will impact everyone. But it's great to be able to, from my point of view, to have a project where I can actually help the local growers directly.”