Everyone involved with the citrus industry should be aware by now that a citrus tree in the Los Angeles area, and an associated Asian citrus psyllid, were found to be infected with Huanglongbing (Greening), a tree‐deadly bacterial disease of citrus and related plants.  Parts of this diseased tree appear to have been propagated from material not legally‐certified to be used to produce new citrus trees.Bringing in an illegal bud and propagating a new branch or tree of a favorite pummelo from a country in Asia, no matter how sweet the fruit; or a lime from Mexico, no matter how much it reminds one of home or a fun vacation; or possibly even a citron from an arboretum in Europe,no matter how good the fruit smells; puts the entire California citrus industry at extreme risk.   

This report issued by University Of California Extension - Kern County CA.

See what can happen from illegally bring citrus material into the USA.

Millet

But this is actually good news right because, the disease wasn't psyllid born. Therefore, they just need isolate and eradicate the infected trees?

This is good news for now. The problem is that Mexico has a bad problem with greening & the vector is moving north & with it so will the disease. Something has to be done to eradicate the psyllid.

Well Mark, yes and no. Very interestingly, Dr. Dodds, who is a Professor Emeritus for UC Riverside Citrus Research spoke at our local N. San Diego County CRFG chapter a couple of weeks ago described the management of HLB as "chasing a shadow". The problem being is that infected budwood has most certainly now infected any number of ACP's that are living in the area, because trees do not show symptoms for about 2 years, but are infective during the prodromal time. So, two years has gone by where that tree with the grafted infected pummelo budwood has sat there and infected psyllids who may have landed on that branch. Will infected psyllids make their way into Calif. via Mexico? Yes. Eventually. I am hopeful though, that some of the really fascinating research going on around the world will provide solutions before we end up with no uninfected citrus here in California. Here is the link to his presentation. We recorded it and posted it up on YouTube. Dr. Dobbs was fascinating to listen to, and several of the leading HLB researchers were his past grad students (namely Erik Mirkov at Texas A&M doing research around the spinach "protector" genes). Here's the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpsJqUA3vk

And a link to Dr. Mirkov's research: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2012-04-01/citrus-industry-disease-spinach/53895914/1

But, the most fascinating research that Dr. Dodds mentioned, was a research project taking a "silver bullet" approach against the pathogen, itself. Unbelieveable concept, and it is looking very promising. The researchers are creating a non-pathogenic Trizesta virus that is genetically altered to not only be non-pathogenic for Trizesta, but to be altered so that it would kill the Candidatus Liberibacter sp. bacteria. The trees inoculated or "vaccinated" with this altered Trizesta virus carrying the fatal payload would then continue to protect the tree for its lifetime. THAT would be something! I would give my eye teeth to be involved in that particular research project. I don't have specific information about this research project, and I believe it is not being conducted in the United States, but if I can find the information about the project, I will post it on the forum.

What happened to the person that owned the tree and got the budwood? There should be a healthy penalty.

Actually, the person who grafted the infected pummelo branch is probably more culpable. He had to know what he was doing was wrong. He knew all about HLB from China according to what I have read in a couple of newspaper articles. In my mind, it seems that someone who is capable and skilled enough to be able to graft citrus, and lived in China and saw the devastation from HLB had to know the risk he was taking to smuggle in that scionwood and then use it here in California. The homeowners, at least according to the article, may not have had as much knowledge as the friend from within that Chinese church community, and maybe didn't even realize this was smuggled scionwood. The articles portrayed the homeowners as thinking this person was doing them a favor, and that they all did each other favors within their church community. But, I think you're right. There should be some legal accountability here. An entire commercial industry has now been put at at risk due to his actions. Kind of scary.

Millet when i read it my first thought was OH Joe's tree is in danger .
but it looks to be far enough away maybe his huge tree is safe .

I promise i wont bring any scion wood from other country's

i maybe going to france though soon

I've read Joe's 101 tree was blown away by a bad wind storm. - Millet

OMGOSH i was a Fan of that tree when it was in the lower 10s