USDA expands quarantine of plants in Bay Area

USDA expands quarantine of plants in Bay Area    The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday handed down a federal quarantine order expanding a two-week-old state-ordered quarantine on the movement of nursery stock, cut flowers and other plants. The quarantines are in response to the Bay Area appearance earlier this year of the light brown apple moth, an Australian pest that feeds on hundreds of different species of plants and threatens California’s $38 billion agriculture industry.
   In what officials believe was the first appearance in the United States of the pest, a light brown apple moth was spotted in the Bay Area on Feb. 27. Since then, more than 170 of the invasive pests have been caught in the five-county Bay Area.
   Following the discovery, state agricultural authorities last month imposed a quarantine on the transport of hundreds of different species of plants within the five counties in an effort to stop the spread of the voracious pest. The pest lays eggs on the leaves of the plants it eats, which can then be spread by moving the plants.
   More than 250 species of plants the moth eats — everything from grapes to eucalyptus trees — are included in the quarantines.
   While the state quarantine restricted movements of hundreds of different plants within the Bay Area, the new federal quarantine restricts the movement of the plants within a 1.5-mile area around a positive detection area.
   Under the federal order, all California shipments of plants that are potential hosts for the pest originating within 1.5 miles of a moth find must be visually inspected and certified pest-free before being moved. Outside the 1.5-mile area, production facilities must undergo a one-time visual inspection and be certified pest-free.
   Included in the new federal order are all of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Contra Costa, San Francisco and Marin counties as well as the entire state of Hawaii.