Wine fungus treatment could be used more widely

A chemical-free treatment for a fungus disease in wine grapes may be available to other industries in the future.

Plant pathologist Dean Metcalf is mass-producing the native Tasmanian micro-organism, trychoderma, which attacks botrytis when it's growing in grape flowers.

Mr Metcalf says the method controls the disease as well as any other, but it's chemical free.

He's hoping to extend his research to other crops.

"Tomatoes suffer a lot from botrytis, there's a massive strawberry industry problem, and stone fruit get botrytis," he says.

"So there are many other possible applications, and we're just going to have to see if this particular race of trychoderma might be useful for them as well."