USDA photo by David Bartels
Federal agriculture officials recently established an area quarantined for HLB in, paralleling the intrastate quarantine that the Arizona Department of Agriculture (AZDA) established on Feb. 7, 2025. The quarantined area of approximately 9 square miles is in the Nogales area of Santa Cruz County. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) took the recent action in cooperation with AZDA. There is no commercial citrus impacted by this quarantine.
APHIS is applying safeguarding measures and federal orders on the interstate movement of regulated articles from the quarantined areas in Arizona. This action is necessary to prevent the spread of HLB, also known as citrus greening, to non-infested areas of the United States.
APHIS will publish a notice of this change in the Federal Register.
According to information provided by AZDA last year, HLB was confirmed positive in plant tissue and in an Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), the pest that spreads HLB, for the first time in Arizona. The detections of the confirmed positive ACP and plant tissue were near the southern border with Mexico and more than 180 miles from any production citrus in the state. With the sparse desert landscape between Nogales and any production citrus, the risk for spread to commercial citrus was declared minimal at the time.
Details about HLB and ACP are available from APHIS here. For additional information, contact Abby R. Stilwell at abby.r.stilwell@usda.gov or 919-323-6296.
Source: APHIS
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