Obtaining a phytosanitary certificate via USDA APHIS

General Gardening
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This topic has come up from time to time, most recently here:

I figured I’d share my recent experience with going through this process for the first time.

One of the members of the decentralized cold-hardy avocado breeding project I’m organizing here in the PNW lives on Vancouver Island, and wanted to bring a few trees into Canada, so he looked into the requirements. Unlike the United States, there’s no particular rules about avocados going into Canada, so they just needed to be inspected for a few general pests (ground snails and a few insects).

Like those in many states (I gather?), the Washington State Dept of Ag has a plant inspection program that is available to the general public as well as licensed nurseries:

They require that you first register on the USDA Phytosanitary Certificate Issuance & Tracking System (PCIT):

https://pcit.aphis.usda.gov/pcit/faces/signIn.jsf

Once registered there, you have to complete a “PPQ Form 577” and pay a nominal application fee (currently $6).

Then I coordinated with the inspector via email and met him near the Port of Seattle (I guess that’s where a lot of his work day is spent). Because I had grown the trees in a non-sterile medium and the pots had been outside on the ground, he required that the trees be barerooted and placed in a sterile medium (perlite in a sturdy bag) for the border crossing.

They charge both an hourly rate (one hour at $72/hr) and a certificate fee ($26), plus gas mileage to meet me. Total for both state and federal fees was around $125 for one certificate, but a single certificate can be good for one tree or a whole truckload, as long as they all cross the border together.

The project member took them across today and had no trouble at all, the border agent checked the certificate and gave him no grief whatsoever.

So, not quite as easy as it probably should be, but also not a huge expense added to feel better that you’re not introducing the next major pest somewhere.

Oh and as an aside for any Canadians wishing for better hardy avocados to be available there, assuming the two trees and their grafts all survive the barerooting and travel, this might be the first introduction of both the Oroville train station “Duke” and @Marta’s “Long South Gate” cultivars to Canada!

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Persons in the U.S. with a nursery stock certificate and requisite USDA compliance agreements can ship live avocado in soil to Canada but a shipment inspection is required. Our local Ag department charges $120.

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I was asked about a certificate going to Hawaii as every passenger in the plane was. That was the only time I was asked about one going between Florida, North Dakota, New York, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri and I forget if it was Louisiana or Missisipi. I think they said no transporting things like coral from the Dominican Republic to America but other than dogs I don’t think they did a lot of inspection. Maybe they trained the dogs to smell for things like coral and plants? Hawaii could be an exception to this rule because it is a sea locked state but I always wondered what was stopping me from putting them in some pods and having the movers just move the pods. I don’t think they check on the boarders of the mainland states.

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There are agricultural checkpoints coming into CA by road, but they don’t check every vehicle at all hours of the day.

But generally the phytosanitary certificate is for international travel, not interstate travel.

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So basically you would need it for 2 states and 2 out of 2 you would not be able to grow much due to cost of owning a house in those states. I did research and you could own a condo in those states at a decent price but you are really not going to be getting much land in other places. After watching videos by GreenGardenguy1 on YouTube about growing plants in Hawaii it seems it would be a challenge and California would just be a challenge with land cost. I can see many checks going on international. I know when I went to the Dominican Republic they had you fill out a form on how much money you had, the dates you were staying to and they limited it to something like 30 days. I was checking out Australia and noticed 28 days was the max there. They certainly give checks for out of country. That answers my question though. Unless it is Hawaii or California move them wherever you please.

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No, there are lots of other areas that are USDA quarantine zones, and often (but not always) there are road signs warning you about it, like the apple maggot quarantines in WA state and citrus quarantine areas in FL and Texas, among others. But you’re not going to have to answer questions to a border agent unless you’re crossing an international border, with some exceptions for HI and CA but those are porous “borders.”

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I guess I was wrong about the apple maggot quarantine area, that’s not USDA, that’s WA state. But here are the USDA ones:

APHIS-Regulated-Areas
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From the picture it looks like the south is the regulated states ironic enough. You would think the opposite.

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If you lived in this house and went out the front door you would be in the US. IF you go thru the back door you are in Canada.

So definately a need to keep things you grow in the front yard quarantined from things that grow in the backyard. You have to pay property taxes in Canada and the US to own this house and have dual citizenship to live here.

Likely a phytosanitary certificate needed to plant things in your own back yard. Due to deliveries being thru the front door.

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I wonder if Canada could actually enforce that as there is likely not boarder control agents there. I imagine there are many other flaws with living in that house. Since you are part in the USA and part Canada would you need a duel citizenship? That could be a long endeavor. I also imagine the taxes would kill you as it would likely be a few thousand Canadian and a few thousand USA. Our our is worth 900k and we pay 6k taxes a year so it is very possible you end up paying 12k in taxes per year under the same circumstances. Also they claim it is a historic house so I imagine there are some things you can do with the house and some things you cannot. The main issue with historic houses is you have to keep them pretty close to the original from my understanding and that can limit your creative view on what you want your house to be. A few years ago I was looking at houses and saw there was a house in a national park. Supposedly there are something like 300 or 3k houses built on national parks so imagine those limitations when planting.

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If you read some of the articles about The Old Stone Store VT… i think there have been issues in the past with new agents and making them show paperwork etc…

I have seen pics on FB with farms that have soil on both sides of the border… i dont think they are allowed to grow crops on them though.

I guess its mostly the soil that is contaminated or quarantined… plenty of water flows across that line… likely airborne things and bugs i dont think care about that line. I know that birds fly with things in their stomachs and likely wildlife crosses there with seeds as well.

I would hate to be a border agent or duel citizen that had to work on both sides of the line and have fruit packed from one side or the other in my lunchbox. Scary.

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i have a friend from Derby, VT. There is a church in the village that straddles the border too. Half of the village of Derby Line is in Canada. My friend is French-Canadian

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Im hoping for the day that someone from the US learns to bake bread how i like it. Until then they have my Canadian dollars. I like that they use organic cane sugar… which does not grow in Canada… So likely my bread was baked in Canada from sources all over the world… that has to be a nightmare to pull off let alone then shipping that bread across the border and making it to my small town and every town with an ALDI… and it still be fresh. I bet the paperwork is insane on a loaf of bread.

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I appreciate what you’re trying to do with these examples, but it’s really not the “gotcha” you think it is. While pests certainly could hitch a ride in processed food products like flour or sugar or bread, the risk is a lot lower than for soil or live plants, and even still those shipments do actually get inspected.

Bringing soil or live plants from one part of the world to another part of the world without any inspection by someone qualified to spot pests is a bad idea in basically every case. You’re not disproving that fact by giving examples of international trade or porous borders.

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I agree…no gotcha intended… i have all kinds of Canadian stuff growing here and am thankful to have them…as im sure that Canadians are thankful to have things we have.

Im not big on avacados except a good guac.

Interesting on the Duke that its not very frost resistant

He said the Duke is not extremely frost resistant. A couple of other varieties, which can be bought in nurseries, are hardier, he said. These are the Stewart and the Mexicola.
The trees might be all right in a winter that wasn’t too cold, but if temperatures dropped below normal, they’d be damaged, he said. It might take two or three years for them to come back.

No ‘gotcha’ intended… hope it works out for everyone.

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Hah, you’ll always succeed in getting me off-topic by talking about avocados!

While that article is one data point, I’m not sure that’s accurate based on other people’s experiences with Duke vs Mexicola. I’ll obviously be doing more testing here as well, though.

I’m mostly growing seedlings of “hardy” cultivars outdoors, not grafts, though some of both. Seedlings of Duke have survived much better than seedlings of Mexicola so far, but I have not tested either grafted variety outdoors yet, and my only graft of Stewart so far is in the greenhouse. I did distribute a grafted Stewart tree to a member in Portland this spring, but I believe he’ll be protecting that for a year or two before we find out how hardy it really is.

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Mexicola is supposed to be hardy to 18F and I could not find any temperatures on duke but saw a thread claiming no avacado can live in -10 and lots of Canada is freezing to my understanding. I think I have heard their growing zones are one below us in the USA.

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These trees are going to Vancouver Island, which ranges from zone 8a to 9b, with milder winter lows than anywhere else in the PNW:

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I enjoy reading stuff like this and if u read some of my posts im always interested in how things get from one point to another…history etc.

I did a few moment search on FB and seems there are plenty of folks in Canada growing avacados… scions for sale/trade and pics of folks that grow them so obviously its ‘doable’.

.

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