Tree Assistance Program

TAP provides disaster assistance to eligible orchardists and nursery tree growers to replant or rehabilitate trees, bushes, and vines that were lost because of an eligible natural disaster. TAP applies to orchardists and nursery tree growers who commercially raise perennial trees for production of an annual crop and sustain tree deaths in excess of 15 percent in a calendar year (or loss period in a case of plant disease) because of natural disaster after adjustment for normal mortality. TAP authorizes payments to eligible orchardists and nursery tree growers who actually replant or rehabilitate eligible trees, bushes, and vines and who produce nursery, ornamental, fruit, nut, or Christmas trees for commercial sale. To be eligible for TAP, an eligible owner of trees, bushes, or vines, or a grower of the annual crop produced from the trees, bushes, or vines with a claim to ownership share in the annual crop, must have trees bushes and vines that were directly affected by an eligible natural disaster.