The Unnatural Life of a Plant Quarantine

Japanese beetle

Plant quarantines are an important tool for excluding invasive species. Oregon has a bunch of plant quarantines; other states and countries have them, too. When one place has a pest problem that others don’t want, quarantines are often enacted to regulate trade from the infested area.

Oregon’s plant quarantines include: grape pests, chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease and elm yellows, blueberry maggot, peach yellows, peach latent mosaic viroid, peach rosette phytoplasma, oak wilt, apple maggot, European corn borer, Japanese beetle, exotic phytophagous snails, cherry bark tortrix, small broomrape, noxious weeds, glassy-winged sharpshooter, and Phytophthora ramorum (sudden oak death). Oregon also has control areas for most of its agricultural regions, which are sort of mini quarantines. You can see these regulations in their entirety in Volume 13, Oregon Administrative Rules, Chapter 603, Division 52:  http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_600/oar_603/603_tofc.html.

If that doesn’t put you asleep, the National Plant Board maintains summaries of all the states’ quarantines on their website: http://nationalplantboard.org/laws/index.html.

Quarantines come and go, or at least they should if they are based on biology. Unfortunately, their birth and death are impacted by realities, such as bureaucracy, staff shortages, and human nature. Sometimes they take on a life of their own.

The Umatilla County Control Area for orchard pests is a good example (OAR 603-052-0201 & 0206). This regulation was enacted in 1974. It requires everyone that lives within the designated area to take care of, i.e. spray, his or her fruit trees. It is based on a sound premise—if everyone takes care of their pest problems, the overall pest pressure in the region will be reduced and everyone benefits.

I have two problems with this quarantine. First it mandates all host trees, including those on commercial, residential, public, and abandoned properties, be sprayed with “agricultural chemicals or pesticides.” This is not consistent with modern integrated pest management. We know a lot more now about how to suppress pest populations with less reliance on pesticides. Secondly, and this is my biggest beef, the quarantine boundary is incomprehensible. Here is the description:

“Beginning at the point of intersection of the North and South Center Line of section 18, Township 6 North, Range 35, E.W.M. and the boundary between the States of Oregon and Washington; thence Southerly along the North and South center lines of sections 18, 19, 30, and 31 in Township 6 North, Range 35, E.W.M. to the quarter corner common to section 31, Township 6 North, Range 35, E.W.M. and section 6 Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M. thence Easterly along the line common to sections 31 and 32, Township 6 North, Range 35, E.W.M. and 6 and 5 Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M. to the corner common to sections 32 and 33 in Township 6 North, Range 35, E.W.M. and sections 4 and 5 in Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M.; thence Southerly along the line between sections 4 and 5 in Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M. to the quarter corner between said sections 4 and 5; thence Easterly along the East and West center line of sections 3 and 4 in Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M. to the quarter corner between sections 2 and 3, Township 5 North, Range 35, E.W.M.; . . . . . .”

Trust me—this boundary description goes on, and on, and on, and on, and . . .

Maybe that made sense in 1974, but I doubt if there is a person alive in Umatilla County that knows for sure whether they are in or out of the control area! I’d wager that most people aren’t even aware of the law.

Obviously the regulation needs attention. We set out to clarify things a few years ago and worked with an advisory committee to draft language that would make sense in today’s world. Our proposed amendments would have encouraged integrated pest management and simplified the boundary to all of Umatilla County minus the Umatilla Indian Reservation. We held a hearing in Pendleton and opened up a public comment period. Some people liked our proposal, but some people really didn’t. The main objection we heard was that we would be forcing more people to use pesticides!

Ironically, during the rule-making process, we learned that there is a local ordinance that duplicates the state control area. In the end, we decided to let the sleeping dog lie. Like a lot of other regulations, this one just stayed on the books.

This fall we decided to kick that sleeping dog again. This time we’re proposing to repeal the control area completely. If we can’t get rid of a regulation that is incomprehensible, out-of-date, and duplicative, I worry about our system. The public comment period is open until Jan. 31, 2012. Anyone can send comments to: sgooch@oda.state.or.us.

Oregon’s Administrative Rules now fill 19 volumes each of about 600 pages; our revised statutes fill another 17 volumes! That is too much. With an extreme sense of irony, I offer what I see as the only real solution: another law! I wish there was a law that said in order to enact a new regulation; you had to get rid of two old ones first. From an insider’s point of view, I can tell you I would have no problem doing that for the next 10 years or so. There is always demand for new regulations; do something about Arundo (giant reed), protect us from infested firewood, stop the importation of exotic crickets, etc. Rarely do we hear the opposite.

People aren’t aware of all the petrified laws on the books, and if they aren’t being enforced or are not causing problems, they just accumulate. Do you suppose I could get rid of them if I stacked them up on my desk and drove a stake through the pile? I’ve been doing administrative rule reviews since September, and I’m tempted to try it!

Dan Hilburn

Christmas Tree Hitchhikers

Oregon’s frantic Christmas tree harvest is winding down. In just a couple of weeks, seven and half million trees are cut and shipped to retail yards around the world. Only 8 percent of those harvested remain in Oregon. This is a busy time for Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) inspectors and their counterparts in receiving states and countries. All of them are doing their best to ensure that pests and diseases are not hitchhiking on the trees.

Before coming to Oregon, I was an inspector in Bermuda, and I often looked at Christmas trees on the docks in the sunny, warm Hamilton harbor. Truck drivers there traditionally take a small branch from the first Christmas tree shipment and insert it in their truck’s grill. Bermudians smile when they see that little reminder of the approaching holidays (Christmas & Boxing Day).

Every one knows Christmas trees vary a lot in shape and desirability from a consumer’s point of view. None of that matters to inspectors. They focus on insects, slugs, tree frogs, Swiss needle cast, and other potential hitchhiking invasive species. From my days in Bermuda, I remember trees from Canada being the cleanest and trees from the Southeast United States being the buggiest. Whether or not there had been a hard frost prior to harvest made a big difference. Oregon trees were always lush and green, but if they hadn’t been exposed to a frost, they were carrying hitchhikers. We’d thump the trunks on the pavement and look for potential pests among the critters that dropped out.

Bermuda, like many islands, has been severely impacted by harmful invaders, including a scale insect that nearly wiped out the endemic Bermuda cedar. They have good reason to be careful with imported plant material.

So far, 2011 has been a good year for Oregon Christmas tree exports. A total of 99 percent of the trees that were certified for export also passed their import inspection at the other end. The few that didn’t included five truckloads rejected at the Mexican border (yellowjackets, weevils), one container turned back in Japan (strawberry root weevil), three fumigated in Guam (spiders), six held in Hawaii (slugs), and one held in Columbia (unidentified bug). Yellowjackets, slugs, and weevils are all known invaders; hats off to the sharp-eyed inspectors that found them.

Inspections are important in the fight against invasive species, but they are not a panacea. As with other commodities, only a small percentage of Christmas trees are checked on either end. The reason is simple; there are a lot of trees and only a few inspectors. Oregon has 10 inspectors working full time on Christmas trees in the fall. That seems like a lot, but if we estimate that 6,900,000 trees are exported (92 percent of total harvest) and the entire harvest happens over 20 working days, each inspector would have to look at 1.2 trees per second to inspect every tree! The best they can do is look at a sample and catch the obvious problems.

What the world really needs is a way to “pasteurize” Christmas trees. Traditionally, trees were shipped straight from the field “as is”. Many growers now use mechanical shakers to remove dead needles and surface hitchhikers. That helps, and some markets now require shaking. Unfortunately, no one has developed a standard, thus the efficacy varies depending on the speed and duration of the shaking. Starting this year, Mexico required 15 seconds of shaking at 700 rpm as well as an insecticide spray prior to harvest. That seems like overkill. Spinning, bouncing, and blowing have also been tried, but no one has tested the efficacy of these methods.

This year ODA started testing different shaking and spray regimes. It is a first step toward developing standard best management practices that will reliably remove potential pests from these famous holiday icons.

In my dreams, we would offer substantial monetary prize for the first person to develop a fast and economical way to “pasteurize” Christmas trees. We could name the process after the developer, ______(your name here)-ize, so Louis Pasteur could quit turning in his grave, and we could eliminate Christmas trees as a pathway for introduction of invasive species. Wouldn’t that be nice?

None of this matters to Oregonians if they cut or choose locally grown trees. We’re lucky to live where Christmas trees are beautiful, inexpensive, and abundant. For us, the best practice is to thump the trunk in the driveway a couple of times before bringing the tree inside. Your kids might enjoy looking for native bugs among the dead needles, and you won’t bring these annoying Christmas guests inside! 

Dan Hilburn

Pass the Fruit Salad, Please

Spotted wing drosophila on ripe fruit. Photo courtesy of homeorchardsociey.org.

A year ago I wrote about spotted winged Drosophila (SWD) in Oregon and the lessons learned from the first year of survey, management, and personal consumptive fruit sampling. Since then, another season has passed. We’ve got another year of experience and another belly-full of Oregon fruit under our belt, and we’re gaining confidence that SWD is not the nightmare we once feared.

In a nutshell, here is what we’ve learned from the perspective of growers, researchers, regulators, and consumers:

Growers

-Growers, including organic growers, can manage this pest if they pay attention and are ready to act when their crop starts ripening.

-SWD attacks ripe, soft fruit (especially raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries). It doesn’t bother green fruit or hard fruit like apples or pears.

-Populations are low in the spring and early summer. SWD builds up in late summer and fall. Numbers in the Columbia Gorge are consistently much lower than western Oregon.

-Grapes are not a preferred host. SWD is present in vineyards in the fall, but it seems to be attracted to split or damaged grapes.

Researchers

-There is a lot of research going on, and we understand this pest much better now than when it first showed up (http://groups.hort.oregonstate.edu/group/spotted-wing-drosophila), but there are still unanswered questions:

-Trap counts have increased dramatically in the fall the last two years. Thankfully, this is after our fruit crops are harvested, but we don’t understand why this happens. There were high trap counts all last winter, and then the population crashed in March. That’s weird. It would be nice to know what is going on.

-The standard trap (plastic cup with drilled holes) and lure (apple cider vinegar) is not very sensitive and it catches a lot of other non-pest Drosophila. It works for research, but it isn’t easy for growers/homeowners to use. We need a better trap.

-SWD is not hard to control, there are a number of materials that work, including organics, but with multiple generations, resistance could build up quickly. We need robust management strategies that don’t rely so heavily on cover sprays.

Regulators

-State and federal regulators across the country have decided not to enact quarantines for this pest recognizing they would have been impossible to enforce and consequently would have had a very low chance of success. Our decision in 2009 not to quarantine infested counties in Oregon was the right one.

-The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) has worked with Oregon State University (OSU) and commercial crop consultants to make growers aware of this new challenge and management techniques they can use. The partnership has worked well.

Consumers

-There is plenty of fresh local fruit available. It is a good idea to rinse it before you eat it; it could have been sprayed, and reducing your exposure to pesticides makes sense.

-If you buy or pick fruit and some goes soft, pick out the bad ones and throw them away.

-Finally, if you’re into unsprayed fruit, accept that you could get some extra protein now and then in the form of SWD eggs/larvae. You won’t taste or feel them, and they aren’t harmful to ingest. 

I once asked another entomologist what he recommended for western cherry fruit fly (another pest with similar habits). He said, “Never eat half a cherry!” Our bodies are fine with the occasional swallowed insect, even if our mind says “gross.” In fact, insects are an important part of human diets in many parts of the world. Think about the choice of trace amounts of pesticide residues or a little extra protein. Which would you prefer to eat?  

Me? I choose fresh fruit from either conventional or organic sources and wash it, sort out any soft ones, and enjoy it. Works for me. During this season of thanksgiving, we should be thankful that we live in a fruit-producing state and have so much fresh produce available to us. Spotted wing Drosophila isn’t going to change that. “Pass the fruit salad, please.”

Dan Hilburn