The Citrus Quarantine Station in Spain

Abstract

A Citrus Quarantine Station has been recently established in Spain. It is based in a tissue culture procedure developed for safe budwood introduction, consisting of the following steps: a) preliminary budwood inspection; b) budwood disinfestation; c) budwood culture in vitro at 32 C for flushing; d) disinfestation of flushes obtained; e) isolation of 0.1-0.2 mm long shoot tips; f) grafting shoot tips in vitro; g) transplanting micrografted plants to a quarantine greenhouse; h) indexing of micrografted plants; i) release of budwood. Any abnormal or contaminated tissue or plant found during the process and all introduced plant material except the shoot tips are destroyed. Pests, fungi, bacteria and even virus and virus-like diseases introduced with the original material can be easily eliminated by this procedure. The estimated time from budwood introduction until budwood release is 24-30 months, including 18-24 months for xyloporosis indexing.