What is being done about shipments of plants susceptible to the disease?
On 9 April 2004, the USDA issued an order restricting the interstate movement of host plant material from the entire state of California. Those restrictions include requirements that nurseries be inspected and tested for the presence of P. ramorum before regulated nursery stock is moved out of state. In New Jersey, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA) and the USDA – Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) are tracing the movement of plants that may be infected with SOD. NJDA staff and APHIS officers have jointly visited the retail nurseries and garden centers that received the potentially infected shipments to stop the sale of any remaining nursery stock, and are working with Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) Cooperative Extension to test plants that had not yet been sold. The NJDA sent an advisory letter with a USDA – Forest Service color fact sheet on SOD to consumers who received plants directly from the Californian nurseries last year.
