{"id":654974,"date":"2010-02-04T15:24:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T20:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01287763f8dc970c"},"modified":"2010-02-04T15:28:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T20:28:45","slug":"crop-threatening-weevil-discovered-at-lax-in-basil-shipment-from-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/654974","title":{"rendered":"Crop-threatening weevil discovered at LAX in basil shipment from Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Los Angeles International Airport intercepted a tiny insect that could pose a risk to agriculture, officials said Thursday. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The pest, <em>pseudapion seminidum wagner<\/em>, a member of the weevil family, was discovered in a shipment of organic basil from Mexico. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;LAX has never had this kind of bug before,&quot; said Naveeda Mirza, program manager for agriculture with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection field office. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Customs officials sent the insect to an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Infamous in Florida as a stored grain pest, the pear-shaped weevil can also feed on plant stems and leaves, causing abnormal plant growth, Mirza said. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The importer, who had the option to have the basil treated, destroyed or sent back to Mexico, chose to have the crop fumigated and sent on its way. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&#8212; Amina Khan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Los Angeles International Airport intercepted a tiny insect that could pose a risk to agriculture, officials said Thursday. The pest, pseudapion seminidum wagner, a member of the weevil family, was discovered in a shipment of organic basil from Mexico. &quot;LAX has never had this kind of bug before,&quot; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2624,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2Ko6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}