Can you bring citrus trees into quarantined states?

Question

According to the USDA here http://saveourcitrus.org/ and in particular this page http://saveourcitrus.org/index.php/grow-citrus-smart it states "If you are thinking about buying a citrus plant, be sure not to move it from quarantined states or territories."

This makes perfect sense.

I live in one of the quarantined states (Arizona) and I am having an email discussion with an online citrus tree vendor and he won't sell and ship me a citrus tree because of that restriction. However, that doesn't make any sense to me. Surely you would be allowed to ship INTO a quarantined area? (from an unquarantined area.)

(I assume that the vendor is not in a quarantined state otherwise he would not be able to ship to anywhere in the country.)

Can anyone confirm if you can bring a citrus tree INTO a quarantined state?

Answer 1

I just bought a Clementine tree through the mail. The tag on it says:

"Limited Permit: USDA-APHIS-PPQ. Not for distribution in AZ, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands of the United States or those portions of CA and SC not quarantined due to the presence of ACP.

Also I found this link specific to AZ. It says

Citrus trees purchased to be planted within the quarantine area must have a tag issued by the USDA that states that the citrus trees may not be moved to outside of the quarantine area.

So that at least confirms you do have to do something special to move trees into the quarantine area.

It looks like not all of AZ is quarantined. There seems to be a serious effort to keep ACP from spreading to other areas of the state and eliminate it from the areas that do have it.