‘
Candidatus
Liberibacter asiaticus’ (
CL
as) is associated with the most destructive disease of citrus, huanglongbing (
HLB
). The most widely used methods for detection of
CL
as are
PCR
‐based and require purification of
DNA
from plant samples. Elution of
DNA
from tissue prints made on nitrocellulose membranes followed by
qPCR
(
TPE
‐
qPCR
) was compared to
DNA
extraction of plant tissue followed by
PCR
(X‐
PCR
) by testing the same tissue samples. The former estimated a higher
CL
as population in tissue prints than the latter (
t
‐test;
P
=
0.009). All extracts prepared for
TPE
‐
qPCR
throughout the experiment were also tested by conventional
PCR
and 80.8% were identified as positive. A similar set of stem and petiole tissue samples was tested by
TPE
‐
qPCR
and immunoassay. Although the detection rate by
TPE
‐
qPCR
was higher than by immunoassay, about 6% of tissue prints were positive by immunoassay but not by
TPE
‐
qPCR
. Thus, a higher detection rate would be achieved by combining
TPE
‐
qPCR
with immunoassay. Significant differences were observed in the performance of nitrocellulose membranes from different manufacturers in these assays. Immunotissue prints showed that the spatial distribution pattern of
CL
as infection varied widely from one sample to another, but the patterns were highly correlated among serial sections from the same sample, suggesting that
CL
as preferentially colonizes adjacent phloem cells in a vertical rather than horizontal direction.