The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Fearing an outbreak of sudden oak death among trees, Kentucky officials are preparing to seek federal permission to ban all plants from California, where the plague has killed tens of thousands of trees.

No cases of sudden oak death have been confirmed in either greenhouses or the wild in Kentucky, but it has been found in Tennessee and Virginia.

Kentucky agriculture officials view that has a potential threat to Kentucky's oaks, which are the most prevalent trees throughout the state's 12 million forest acres and the bulk of the state's estimated $2 billion timber industry.

Kentucky officials want the U.S. Department of Agriculture's approval to reinstate a ban that the state briefly had in place earlier this year, before a California nursery group challenged it in court.

California growers, who supply the largest amount of nursery plants in the country, argue they are following Agriculture Department guidelines for inspecting and testing plants for sudden oak death before shipping them out of state.

State Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer and state entomologist John Obrycki say the federal rules aren't strict enough because they don't require California to test all plants.

The pair wants Kentucky to join eight other states that have imposed tougher standards in an effort to stave off the disease.

Sudden oak death, which despite its name has taken years to kill California oaks, has been found in 157 cases in 21 states, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. It's caused by a fungus-like pathogen spread by wind and rain and through soil.

An Agriculture Department report says eight oak species indigenous to the eastern United States are vulnerable to the disease. Six of those grow in Kentucky.

The only method of controlling the disease is cutting down and burning infected trees or plants.

"So when that's sort of what your options are, you do get very cautious," Obrycki said.

Kerry Britton, national pathologist for forest health protection with the department's Forest Service, said there are indications that the disease could impact many eastern oak species.

"All of our eastern oak species that have been tested in the laboratory ... were susceptible," Britton said.

When the disease sprung up last year outside a known quarantined area, Kentucky and other states placed emergency bans on certain California nursery stock. That prompted the California Nurseries and Garden Centers to file the federal lawsuit against Kentucky.

The association chairman, Donald Dillon, said Kentucky was sued because its ban was the strictest and the state continued to outlaw California plants even after the federal Agriculture Department denied an earlier request to implement the ban.

The state and the association settled the lawsuit by agreeing that Kentucky would not have a policy exceeding federal regulations.

"We're complying with the federal rule," Dillon said. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

Barry Skipper, director of the Kentucky Agriculture Department's Division of Environmental Services, said more research is needed before more California plants are allowed into Kentucky.

While Kentucky and California fight out the ban, local growers wait.

Jim Wallitsch, owner of a Louisville nursery and president of the Kentucky Nursery and Landscape Association, said the earlier ban was inconvenient and forced his nursery to look to Florida and other states for stock.

Mary Wallitsch said buyers will eventually pick up the cost of any losses suffered by California nurseries.

"They're going to pass it on," she said. "Like we'd have to pass it on."

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Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com