Have a question - on the Garden Web Citrus Forum I noticed one of the forum members states that he has gotten a Florida-grown citrus from his local nursery (he is located in Massachusetts). He was told by the nursery that they are now able to receive citrus from Florida. Just wondering if Florida is now able to ship citrus trees outside the state? This would be news to me, but then, what do I know, I live in California

I heard a while back that there was some consideration of that. Maybe it is true. I can't remember where I heard that.

Yes, those nurseries that have passed all of the Federal rules and guidelines are now allowed to ship citrus trees out of the state. Record Buck is one of the certified nurseries so I would imagine that is where the Citrus tree in question came from.

Thanks Stan. Good to know that nurseries can start to increase their business out of state. It's been a tough few years for sure!

What I'd love to see is the ability to order a citrus tree from Florida that could be shipped into California. I'm thinking that although many citrus tree growers in Florida who are not able to become certified still will not be able to ship into another quarantined state. Boo.

Darkman, here you go. In a year or two, I will be buying from you.- Millet (319 BO-)

http://www.freshfromflorida.com/onestop/forms/08066.pdf

Over the years I have purchased a lot of citrus trees from this Florida Nursery. Very nice people indeed. They moved to north Florida out of the Florida commercial citrus growing area so that they could continue to produce citrus trees, and build a screen house to legally propagate their citrus trees. When I bought from them they sold commercial and retail. I suppose they are now able to ship out of state. - Millet (319 BO-)

http://www.briteleaf.com/faq.htm

After reading that every time they gather bud wood they will have to have a Gov. person there to watch them collect the bud wood/ aprove tree I think the prices of the Florida Trees will be considerably higher than non FL trees...... I can see all the other "requirements" being easily absorbed with out a large cost increase. But then.. I wonder how has the Florida Door yard sales been surviving?

Gina *BabyBlue*

Thanks, Millet. I've been to Brite Leaf's web site, and they have a very nice selection. I think I might email them to see if Florida is allowing certified growers who can ship out of Florida now are able to ship to other quarantined states.

Here's a question I don't think anyone asked. Where are the source trees for the budwood located ? Are they all in screened houses as well ? If not, isn't that defeating the purpose ?

Patty,

Generally, state authorities prevent citrus trees from being imported into a state while federal authorities prevent citrus trees from being exported from a state. Even though federal authorities will now allow citrus trees that meet their regulations to be exported from Florida, California authorities will not allow citrus trees to be imported into California.

Thanks for clarifying that, jrb. I also checked to see if there is any way I could mail out budwood to others in non-quarantined states. That is definitely a no-go here in California. I can, however, send seeds since we are only quarantined right now for the Asian Citrus Psyllid and not for HLB. If that happens, which I suspect it will eventually, then I can't even mail out seeds, as they can harbor HLB. It's a rough deal with the various citrus pests, my gosh.

If you peruse Briteleaf's website, they do a pretty good job of explaining how the process works. All inside positive pressure greenhouses, including budwood sources. Checked by USDA every 30 days, Budwood tested for greening twice a year. They also mentioned that they were working with the USDA to ship outside Florida to everywhere East of the Mississippi River. That was the deal they were looking for. Shipping outside of Florida in exchange for not shipping west of the Mississippi. So it doesn't look like they'll be shipping to California anytime soon. They do have a nice selection though, don't they? Wish we had better availability in Texas. It's hard to find the rarer (and newer) varieties.