Nurseries who grow and ship Boxwood, please read. This post provides important information on new proposed requirements and an opportunity to provide feedback to CFIA.
In November of 2022, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) added Box Tree Moth to their list of regulated pests and have established a regulated area of the entire province Ontario. You can find the details of the pest risk management decision at this link here (RMD-22-02).
With the upcoming implementation of the regulated area of Ontario for box tree moth, new domestic and import phytosanitary requirements will be put into place by CFIA with a target date of March 31, 2023 for implementation.
The CFIA has posted a draft directive outlining domestic movement and import requirements which is currently open for consultation. You can review the draft directive here in PDF version. If you are having trouble viewing the PDF, please email me and I’d be happy to provide a copy in English or French.
This directive describes the import and domestic phytosanitary requirements to prevent the introduction and spread within Canada of box tree moth (Cydalima perspectalis).
What does this mean for Ontario Boxwood Growers?
For growers in Ontario, this means an approved box tree moth pest module will be required to ship boxwood to markets in Canada that are outside of Ontario.
Growers: Now is the time for you to look over this directive and pest module and comment if you have any changes or edits to suggest. The CFIA is accepting comments on the attached directive (D-22-04) with a deadline of January 20, 2023. While this is a short turn around, your comments will be taken into consideration before implementation of the directive at the end of March. Comments can be sent directly to CFIA at cfia.horticulture.acia@inspection.gc.ca and/or you can also email Jamie Aalbers (jamie@cnla-acpp.ca) for inclusion in the CNLA response before the Jan 20th deadline.
About the BTM Pest Module:
The pest module was developed by CNLA and LO for inclusion in the Clean Plants Certification program and it is the one CFIA will be accepting to meet phytosanitary requirements.
Over the past months, CNLA, LO, and grower members have worked closely with CFIA technical staff to fine-tune the module. This industry-developed module is included as Appendix 1 in the directive attached above.
The box tree moth pest module is a systems-based approach that will be discussed more at the Nursery Growers Short Course on Feb 10th, 2023 (mark your calendars!).
Current spread of Box Tree Moth:
CFIA recently released their 2022 box tree moth survey maps that I’m including here. Red indicates positive catches in traps or confirmed reports. We can see from this map that box tree moth is not just isolated to areas of the GTA and Niagara and that growers of boxwood throughout the province would benefit to being on a systems-based approach to preventing and controlling box tree moth in their nurseries.
Box tree moth trapping was also completed in B.C. with no positive detections.
Discussions with USDA-Aphis with regards to the federal order prohibiting importation of Buxus spp., Euonymus spp. and Ilex spp. from all of Canada are still ongoing.
What’s next?
As mentioned, this draft directive is up for consultation until January 20, 2023. The CFIA is working towards a target date of implementation of March 31st 2023. After that date, any boxwood moved from Ontario to other areas of Canada will need to follow the new domestic movement requirements outlined in the directive.
On February 10th at the Nursery Growers Short Course, we will be having a Box Tree Moth symposium where members of the BTM technical advisory committee will present on surveillance, new research, implementation of the box tree moth pest module, and CFIA will be present to address any questions regarding new import and domestic movement requirements prior to implementation. Registration for short course is now open and the complete agenda will be posted soon!
If you have any questions about anything mentioned here or need documents in a different format, please reach out to me via email.
Thank you to members of the box tree moth technical advisory committee for providing documents and information for this blog post.
Cassie Russell
Nursery and Landscape Specialist, OMAFRA
cassie.russell@ontario.ca
