Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand and Growers, who were calling the berries "melonettes", because the local name for the fruit, "Chinese gooseberry", had political connotations due to the Cold War, and to further distinguish it from real gooseberries, which are prone to a fungus called anthracnose. An American importer, Norman Sondag of San Francisco, complained that "melonettes" was as bad as "Chinese gooseberry" because melons and berries were both subject to high import tariffs, and instead asked for a short Maori name that quickly connoted New Zealand. In June 1959, during a meeting of Turners and Growers management in Auckland, Jack Turner suggested the name
Gooseberry development stage. Other potential threats are V-moth ("Macaria wauaria") and gooseberry sawfly ("Nematus ribesii"). "Nematus ribesii" grubs will bury themselves in the ground to pupate; on hatching into adult form, they lay their eggs, which soon hatch into larvae, on the underside of gooseberry leaves. Insecticides used in the 19th-century against these included tar water, weak solutions of carbolic acid, and powdered hellebore, which worked against magpie moths and V-moths as well as gooseberry sawflies. (Foxglove and tobacco infusions were also sometimes used.) A 2008 study concluded that a solution of magnesium sulfate applied to a bush's leaves has a