South Carolina

The United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of citrus canker disease in a nursery in South Carolina. The nursery sells plants to consumers through online sales. Citrus canker causes citrus leaves and fruit to drop prematurely, and results in lesions on citrus leaves, stems and fruit. Fruit infected with the bacterium that causes citrus canker (Xanthomonas axonopodis) is safe to eat, but it may not be marketable because of the lesions. Citrus canker is not harmful to people or animals.

Together with state partners, APHIS is working to collect and destroy the plants shipped to consumers in 11 states and trace plants that were sold to determine additional locations of potentially infected plants. The states include Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. If you live in one of the 11 states and bought citrus plants online that came from South Carolina between August 5, 2021, and February 17, 2022, please keep your plants for now. If you purchased a plant or plants that might be infected, APHIS and/or state officials will contact you in the next several days to collect and properly dispose of any plants purchased from the nursery. You can also call your local USDA office.

South Carolina public health and livestock officials have recently identified a large population of Asian longhorned ticks infesting a pasture at a cattle farm in York County. This invasive species of tick is not commonly found in the United States, and bites from these ticks have caused illnesses in people, animals and livestock in other countries. As of June 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports Asian longhorned ticks were first identified in the United States in 2010 and have since been found in 17 states. In South Carolina, a small number of these ticks were identified in 2020 on shelter dogs in Lancaster and Pickens counties.

To help state officials learn more about the prevalence of Asian longhorned ticks in South Carolina, residents are asked to carefully submit ticks suspected to be Asian longhorned ticks for confirmatory identification. This surveillance will help determine tick species presence, distribution, seasonality, and potential tick-borne disease risks.

Effective immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), together with South Carolina Clemson University's Department of Plant Industry (DPI), is adding portions of Charleston and Dorchester Counties to the quarantine area for the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) in South Carolina. This action is being taken in response to the detection of two infested trees found earlier this year just outside of the current quarantine area.

If you live in the quarantine area, please help by allowing officials access to your property to inspect and remove trees. If you live in Charleston County, Dorchester County, or nearby counties, please look for ALB and examine your trees for any damage that may be caused by the beetle, such as dime-sized exit holes in tree trunks and branches. Please take pictures and, if possible, capture suspicious insects in a durable container and freeze them, which helps to preserve the insects for identification. ALB is not harmful to people or pets. Report the insect or tree damage by calling the ALB hotline at 1-866-702-9938 or submitting a report online at www.AsianLonghornedBeetle.com.

South Carolina will become only the second state in the United States to ban the nursery sale of Bradford pear trees and any other pear trees grown on the commonly used Pyrus calleryana rootstock. The ban on sales will begin Oct. 1, 2024, which is the annual nursery licensing renewal date in South Carolina. Ohio will become the first state on Jan. 1, 2023, after passing regulations banning the sale of the species in 2018 with a 5-year grandfathering period. Additional information about the ban’s impact on homeowners can be found by visiting the Clemson University Home & Garden Information Center.

The additions of Pyrus calleryana — or Callery pear — along with three species of Elaeagnus to the State Plant Pest List met the approval of state agency representatives and the director of Clemson’s Regulatory and Public Service Programs. The clock is now ticking on a grandfathering period of a little more than 3 years for the nursery industry to comply with the new regulations by ceasing sale of these plant species.