Country: United States

Title: Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (causal agent of Citrus Greening or Huanglongbing): APHIS Expands and Establishes Quarantine Areas in California

Contact:
Shailaja Rabindran, Director of Specialty Crops and Cotton Pests, at (301) 851- 2167.

Report:

Effective immediately, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in cooperation with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), is expanding the areas quarantined for Huanglongbing (HLB; citrus greening), caused by Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, in California. APHIS is adding portions of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in California to the quarantined areas. With the expansion of the Jurupa Valley and Riverside areas of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in the HLB quarantine area, CDFA merged the HLB quarantine boundaries creating a single HLB quarantine that expands across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. In addition, APHIS is establishing a quarantine in a portion of San Diego County. APHIS is taking this action because of HLB detections in plant tissue samples collected from multiple locations during routine surveys in California.

APHIS is applying safeguarding measures on the interstate movement of regulated articles from the quarantined areas in California. These measures parallel the intrastate quarantine that CDFA established. This action is necessary to prevent the spread of HLB to non-infested areas of the United States. The specific changes to the quarantined areas in California are attached and can also be found at:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant-health/citrus-greening

APHIS will publish a notice of this change in the Federal Register.

Under IPPC Standards, 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' the agent that causes citrus greening is a pest that is present: not widely distributed and under official control  in the United States.

Posted Date: July 11, 2022, 10:02 a.m.