NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee agriculture officials are expanding an emergency quarantine for a disease that kills black walnut trees beyond Knox County to several other counties.
The emergency quarantine has been expanded to Anderson, Blount and Union counties due to new discoveries of the thousand cankers disease.
A Department of Agriculture statement Friday said the disease-causing fungus, Geosmithia, is transmitted by a small twig beetle.
There are also restrictions on moving walnut products and hardwood firewood in: Campbell, Claiborne, Grainger, Jefferson, Loudon, Monroe, Morgan, Roane, Scott and Sevier counties.
The disease, first discovered in Knox County in August, kills a tree within two to three years after it is discovered.
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