Yolo County agricultural officials Thursday announced the first Central Valley detection of the light brown apple moth, a nickel-sized pest with the potential to infest the state's top crops.
A county inspector on Monday found a single moth in a trap in Davis, just south of Interstate 80. State officials confirmed the identity of the insect Wednesday.
Thursday afternoon, county staffers were setting 300 new traps in a nine-square-mile area in and around Davis to assess the extent of the infestation.
The moth, a native of Australia, has since early 2007 been found over a roughly 10,000-square-mile area in several Bay Area and coastal counties.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has committed $90 million to eradicate the moth. The effort has raised controversy for several reasons.
Residents protested plans in 2007 to spray pheromones from the air over infested areas, a technique the state has since shelved. Officials are not contemplating aerial spraying locally, said Yolo County Agriculture Commissioner Rick Landon.
Several entomologists at the University of California, Davis, say attempts to eradicate the moth are futile and a waste of money. They argue that the moth is established over such a wide area that it must have been in the state undetected for decades.
"This is not some sort of wildfire process," said James Carey, a professor of entomology. "These invasions are like a cancer."
They spread slowly but inexorably and are very difficult to stop, Carey said, suggesting that the government treat the moth as a species to control, not eliminate.
How a species is classified has implications for who pays for control efforts and how quarantines are enforced.
The moth can infest more than 250 crops, including the state's top two, grapes and almonds. It also eats a variety of non-food trees and other plants. But the trouble with the moth is not so much the damage it can do to plants. The state's grape growers, for instance, have coped for decades with a very similar exotic moth that is a native of Mexico.
More worrisome for farmers are the quarantines prompted by the moth's spread. If a county is declared infested, it becomes significantly more difficult and costly to sell crops out of the region.
The discovery of a moth locally doesn't necessarily mean the pest is widespread here, Landon said. It's possible, for instance, that the moth rode into the area alone on a truck from an infested county. The trapping effort will provide more information within the next few weeks.
If the infestation is found to be widespread, government officials will likely deploy sterile moths that inhibit reproduction.
Call the Bee's Jim Downing, (916) 321-1065.
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