Gean, it's fairly simple to apply for an import permit. Go to this address and create your account.
http://www.eauth.egov.usda.gov/eauthCreateAccount.html
There are two levels of "security" and no where does it properly explain which one you need. I've just gone through it. Here is what is needed. Create the Level One Security Account. It takes just a few minutes. Then, use the link to find the most local USDA Customer Service Center to you as you MUST take your "state issued photo ID" with you to a service center, spend two minutes for a USDA employee to verify you are who you say you are, click on a tab on their computer screen and you leave. In my case, it required a sixty mile round trip and eleven minutes from the time we walked in to the office to the time we walked out. I had to wait a few minutes for the employee to be available. Of course, as they are fequently not in the office, call them first to make a firm appointment to be "verified". You would think I was trying to import people or nuclear materials!
Once you return home, you will find an email in your email inbox with instructions to log in to your Level Two Security Account to complete it. Takes a minute on high speed.
NOW, you want to apply for:
Permit application type: PPQ 546 Agreement for Postentry Quarantine State Screening Notice
I also applied for a PPQ 587 which, from the descriptions, seemed applicable, but they voided it and said this was all that was necessary. NOW, I wait.... until someone there notices they have to come out to inspect the site to make sure I can handle the applied for shipments for two years, a minimum of ten feet from anything else in the genus rosa.
You have to tell them the country of origin for the roses you wish to import and the maximum number you intend to receive. Make sure the nursery you want to order from ships here. The countries we can't import from are Italy, Australia and New Zealand per the current USDA guidelines on the site. If you are ordering from two different countries, two different sites will be required to quarantine the plants so you need two places, ten feet from anything else in rosa, to separate the shipments.
Once they do their part, you should receive labels and paperwork you need to forward to the sending nurseries for them to follow and use. Once you have those, you may order the plants and arrange the details. However, be forewarned, there is a new (or new since I ordered in the 80s) industry here called "The Expeditors". Traditionally, the package is mailed with the appropriate labels using the specified method of shipment and arrives at the specified USDA inspection station. There are five in the US. There, they try to kill the plants by treating them with the required chemicals to make sure there are no pests or diseases, they are repacked and mailed on to you.
Now, "The Expeditors" intercept the package and deliver it to the USDA inspection station. For this "service", I have heard of fees of $600 for one shipment. Not hundreds of rose plants, just a dozen or so. The shipping nursery I will order from feels they have a way around "The Expeditors", which is what we are testing. If all goes well, there will be some unusual things here this fall/winter. If not, there will be dead rose bushes in a box the government has to deal with.
If it goes as expected, twice a year for two years I have to make the roses available for a County Ag Agent to physically inspect for pests and diseases we don't already have. For those two years, you aren't to propagate from the plants, nor really even cut flowers which may get too close to other roses. If the plants die, you are to inform them and hold the carcasses for pick up. If everything goes to their liking, the quarantine period can be reduced to one year, but that's up to the inspectors.
I know there weren't fees involved previously, but I have to find out about now. Something you should check with your State Ag Dept about. Knowing California, they'll want fees for answering the phone and NOT knowing the answers.
Seem like something you want to mess with? I was blessed to be permitted to hitch a ride on to a friend's import from The Netherlands for two plants of Dr. E. M. Mills, the Van Fleet Hugonis hybrid released in 1929. It is now out of quarantine and will be sent to Burlington in August for propagation. Finally, after more than seventy years, Dr. Van Fleet's Hugonis creation will be commercially available here again. Had there been hundreds of dollars for "fees" for those two plants, they would NOT be here.
If you want to go there, after you've created your account and taken it to level two, go to the link below and "create an application". The type is Plant Protection and Quarantine. You want form PPQ 546 Agreement for Postentry Quarantine State Screening Notice. Kim
Here is a link that might be useful: create application
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