Citrus Canker Found Near Tampa

State agriculture officials today confirmed the presence of the highly contagious bacterial disease citrus canker in nine seedling samples from a nursery near Tampa.

Inspectors had suspected the disease at the Hillsboro Wholesale Nurseries in Valrico during routine checks last month, but it wasn’t confirmed until this morning by the state Department of Agriculture’s Division of Plant Industry in Gainesville. The discovery means that all 652,000 citrus trees on the 18-acre nursery owned by Douglas Holmberg must be destroyed since there is no cure for the crop-destroying disease.