Federal and state officials have expanded the quarantine for huanglongbing (HLB, also known as citrus greening disease) in the Mission Viejo area of California’s Orange County. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in cooperation with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, expanded the quarantine by 13.16 square miles.
The expansion was in response to HLB detections in plant tissue samples collected from residential properties in Orange County. No commercial citrus is impacted by this expansion.
APHIS is applying safeguarding measures on the interstate movement of regulated articles from the quarantined areas in California. Those measures are necessary to prevent the spread of HLB to non-infested areas of the United States…