Associated Press 11.16.07, 6:18 PM ET
LAKELAND, Fla. -

Good citrus that's not infected with canker will no longer be unshippable just because some citrus in the grove it's from has the disease, under a new federal rule adopted Friday.

The new rule will allow good fruit to be shipped to non-citrus producing states even if other fruit from the same grove is infected.

Florida citrus still won't be shipped to other citrus-producing states, though, under the final U.S. Department of Agriculture rule adopted Friday.

Under an interim rule adopted in June 2006, fresh fruit shipped from Florida had to come from groves that had been certified as entirely canker-free. That meant that in an 80-acre grove, for example, if one tree had been infected with canker, all the fruit in the grove was unshippable to other states, even if the other fruit was uninfected and grown far from the diseased tree.

The rule only affects a small portion of the citrus grown in Florida. About 90 percent of oranges grown here are used in juice, not shipped out of the state fresh. Tangerine growers, however, had complained the rule hit them harder, because more of their crop is sold fresh.

The USDA rule was meant to stop the spread of citrus canker - harmless to humans but destructive to the fruit - from spreading to other states.