http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1294142.html

Feds lift ban on shipping Florida commercial citrus
BY SUSAN SALISBURY
Palm Beach Post

Floridians who want to ship commercial citrus to Aunt Gertrude in Louisiana or Uncle Bill in California will now be allowed to do so. Shipping backyard fruit is still a no-no.

A federal ban on the shipment of Florida citrus fruit to 10 citrus-producing states and territories is being lifted Thursday, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Wednesday.

The change applies only to fruit packed at a commercial packinghouse that is following such federal protocol as disinfecting the fruit, spokesman Nolan Lemon said.

Since 2006, Florida citrus growers have not been permitted to ship fruit to California, Arizona, Louisiana, Hawaii, Texas, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The rule was designed to prevent the spread of citrus canker, a fruit-blemishing bacterial disease. But Lemon said a number of studies have shown that fresh fruit that has been disinfected is not a significant pathway to spread canker.

``The likelihood of it being spread in that manner is unlikely and an unnecessary burden on the industry in Florida,'' Lemon said.

Backyard citrus is still prohibited from being shipped anywhere at all, even to non-citrus producing areas, unless it is packed and treated at a commercial packinghouse, Lemon said.

While commercial fruit shipments will be allowed, the shipment of trees, stems and leaves is still banned due to greening disease, Lemon said. Greening is another bacterial disease considered more deadly than canker.

Because of the greening quarantine, citrus seedlings are no longer sold at Florida airports, and kumquat growers still are forbidden from shipping decorative cuttings they once sent to New York and other areas for various holidays.

Growers who once shipped fruit to other citrus-producing states and territories have had to find other markets. In the 2004-05 season, about 6 percent of Florida's domestic fruit shipments were transported to those areas, the USDA said.

In January 2006, the federal and state governments abandoned a 10-year effort to eradicate the canker bacterium within the state, an effort that saw the loss of more than 12 million residential and commercial trees before it was declared a failure and stopped. During the eradication program, Florida removed all citrus trees within 1,900 feet of an infected tree.

There is no mandatory eradication program for greening disease, which is spread by the Asian citrus psyllid. Instead, growers are using aerial sprays and removing infected trees. Greening causes bitter, misshapen fruit.

...."Because of the greening quarantine, citrus seedlings are no longer sold at Florida airports"........

This is news to me. Many post on this forum tell of tourists purchasing small citrus trees at Florida airports, and ESPECIALLY at most every Florida road side tourist stop. - Millet (1,173-)

I avoid airports any more so I can't say about them, but I can say that quite a few of the roadside tourist fruit stands still sell container trees. They're not those little shoebox (or smaller) size plants in boxes, but regular container plants. Not much to be done about those unless they try to stop Lowes, Home Depot, and every plant nursery in the state from selling trees as well.

.....Alan.

I still think they should make all point of sale sites post a notice that it is against the law to take any citrus plants out of Florida. They could even require a FL driver license or proof of residency for purchase of citrus plants if they were really serious.