North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jerry Lehman <jwlehmantree@gmail.com>]

On 5/17/2017 8:45 PM, mIEKAL aND wrote:
> The down side of this transaction is that the Hong Kong people who sent them 
> to me avoided U.S. inspection by lying about the contents.  Just in case the 
> seeds brought some unwanted surprise, I soaked them in bleach - now I hope 
> they germinate.
I hate to tell you this but soaking them in bleach will not take care of 
the sharka of virus, if they come from a region where sharka exists.  As 
I understand that it will be in the cotyledon's flesh and the seedling 
would be infected. The last time sharka was brought into the US maybe 15 
or 20 years ago USDA spent millions of dollars to eradicate it as it 
would be devastating to the commercial Prunus industry. To bring it into 
this country legally you would 1st need to get an import permit and then 
it would go to Beltsville for greenhouse testing and then if it tests 
free of any injurious disease it would be released to you for quarantine 
growing for a minimum of 2 more years. But I feel quite strongly you 
would not even be able to get an import permit to begin with. Sharka I 
believe is one of the most USDA feared plant viruses.