But one person who didn't need reminding was Dr Solomon Maina.

For two years, the researcher based at the Grains Innovation Park has been busying himself trying to limit the damage viruses have on plants and biosecurity.

He is trialling a method to screen imported grains for viruses using genome sequencing, to pick up viruses that more traditional tests cannot.

In a statement, Agriculture Victoria said the aim was to prevent new pathogens, that might cause significant damage and economic losses to the $13 billion Australian grains industry if they become established, from entering.

It said the method would be piloted at the Horsham park's Post-Entry Quarantine facility once trials are complete.

"The new methods would enable researchers to detect multiple viruses which have high genetic variability genome structures at once, with no prior information of the pathogen," Dr Maina said.

"In comparison with traditional methods, for example, the current use of antibodies which is limited to antisera availability may not detect viruses with high genome variations. Plus, the researcher would need to initially suspect an infection in order to test for a specific virus in a crop."

Agriculture Victoria said Europe and the United States had already adopted virus detection frameworks of this kind on other crops. "However, Australia is leading this framework for grains," it said.

"Plant viruses and diseases constitute a major cause of agricultural crop losses and can have a substantial economic impact. They can weaken the growth of cultivated crops, cause yield loss, and reduce the quality, marketability and competitiveness of grain products."

Grain Producers Australia chairman Andrew Weidemann, of Rupanyup, said it was vital farmers' crops were "as immune as possible" to known overseas viruses, and resistant to ones in Australia.

"There is a range of pathogens we have, like Botrytis grey mould (and) wheat streak mosaic virus that has been around for quite a while," he said.

"It's also important we have resistance genes in them for viruses we currently have.

"The Wimmera was decimated in 1998 by Aschoygarabi, a disease which decimated all the chickpea crops. That is a clear example of why we need to have some level of resistance in the varieties we are growing."

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