Last year Tyler State Park in Newtown, PA removed all the Ash trees because of the Ash Borer. I think they said large branches were falling from the trees as they died. It was very sad to see a bunch of tree companies in this beautiful state park ripping out what seemed to be hundreds of trees.
My buddy who has a tree service and provides me with woodchips said he could stay in business only dealing with dead ash trees. Ugh.
see that happening here now. I’ve already started to see the ashes dying along rt. 1 and its only been detected here last yr. this hot summer no doubt helped with the spread.
This is nerdy, but it is kind of like the Ents leaving Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings. These things (spotted lantern fly, spotted wing drosophila, ash borer, Japanese beetles) just keep happening. I wouldn’t blame the trees for wanting to get up and leave.
I have to PAY for all the seeds I get from China!
Tell those dealing with the Asian carp or the pythons and boas and water hyacinths in the Southeast. Anything can get out of control and has and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
I understand where you guys are coming from. But most of the examples you cite are of insects, animals, or microbial life. I think the risks are not equivalent for all imported items. For instance, there are a different set of concerns importing seeds vs. living plants vs. animals vs. cuttings, etc.
I’ve had a long term interest in American Chestnut trees. There is a trial planting of partially resistant conventionally bred chestnut trees in Florence Alabama. One tree in particular is pretty good and shows most of the right traits.
I attended the 2018 American Chestnut Foundation meeting in Huntsville Alabama. One of the topics was use of GMO techniques to transfer resistance from the Chinese chestnut direct to the American chestnut. This is viable using Crispr. The first requirement is to find the resistance genes in the Chinese chestnut genome. The advantage of this method is that resistance genes can be inserted into the American chestnut genome in the same locations where they exist in the Chinese genome. In effect, the result would be an American chestnut tree with 3 or 4 genes from Chinese chestnut. Please note that this can’t be readily done with a breeding approach.
A researcher figured out that the way the blight kills trees is by secreting Oxalic Acid. The method used for the modified resistant tree was to move the Oxalic Acid Oxidase gene from wheat into an American chestnut. This gene is already present in dozens of plants we use for food. The resulting tree is blight resistant, but secretes oxalic acid oxidase in all cells which is serious overkill with negatives effects on the tree’s fitness. The current plan is to move the oxalic acid oxidase gene behind a Wound Initiator already present in the chestnut. That way, the only way O.A. oxidase will be produced is when the tree is wounded.
I I think there are good reasons that authority prohibited certain items to be importanted without permission. I believe everyone should follow the current rules and regulations.
Here is an article worth reading about the modified American Chestnut.
Spotted lantern fly for one might not have been able to establish if tree of heaven was not introduced already.
Morning glory, hibiscus, rose, cabbage, mint, sage, rosemary, and lavender
These are ID’s of some of the seed.
If I get any of these seeds from China I will burn them instead of throwing them in the trash. In the trash you never know where they will land and if they will start to grow.
Not sure what their motive is but I would suspect it is not a good one.
I had a friend that had an American Chestnut tree in his backyard that was not affected by the disease. The Ohio State University was interested in that tree and would come take samples about every year he lived there. He and his wife passed away so I an not sure whatever happened to that study or the tree. He would bring the chestnuts into work when they were dropping off the tree. Those thorns were massive and hurt like the dickens if you accidentally touched them.
If I understand this, these seeds were not “imported without permission” by anybody!
Feed me Seymour!!!
Just listened to this podcast turns out wasn’t a brushing scam.
Here is the related article by the author mentioned. I need the cliffs notes version though 
Yes, concision and precision in writing are nearly lost arts. All that space to say (if I may take the liberty of summarizing):
Some people, panicked by mass media, thought it was something nefarious—biowarfare maybe. The USDA determined it was a brushing scam. But I think that folks, because they were on “lockdown,” all stressed out and desperate for things to do at home, impulse-ordered cheap seeds from vendors on sites like Amazon in unprecedented volumes. Many of these seeds were (unbeknownst to the impulse buyers) from Chinese sellers. Stressed out as they were, these impulse buyers eventually forgot that they had ordered seed at all—and so they were astounded when these “mystery” seeds from China arrived months later, the packages frequently labeled as other things to avoid US seed importation laws. To make matters worse, some packages didn’t even contain seeds originally ordered—because, of course, a lot of these overseas sellers weren’t on the up-and-up to begin with. Some of the recipients freaked out, many did a Chicken Little routine on social media, others begged bureaucrats to save them—and then the reporters showed up.
In the end, of course, it may have been some combination of things. Some of the cases might be brushing-related. Many do, however, seem to prove my impulse-buyers-didn’t-realize-they-were-ordering-Chinese-seeds-and-forgot-about-it-altogether theory. Perhaps we don’t know the whole story yet!
Whatever the case, same old human story: somnambulists, grifters and hysterics. 
EDIT: Come to think of it, we got a probable “brushing” scam package from China a month or two ago: a cheap, iron-on pineapple patch. Now, I know we didn’t order that! That being said, I think Heath’s explanation for many of the seeds is plausible.
tl;dr
“OMG! Strange seeds from China!!!”
“Did you order seeds online?”
“Well…a long time ago, yeah. That’s not related, is it?”
