5 more apple moths discovered

Five more light brown apple moths have turned up within a state quarantine area in southern Sonoma and Napa counties, agricultural officials announced Wednesday.

The discovery means a 19-square mile area will remain under quarantine for at least several more months, and the boundaries may be expanded. Within that area grape growers and other farmers must have their crops inspected and declared free of the moth before transporting them from the fields.

Two more moths were found in traps on Skaggs Island Road on Oct. 2 and another one on Oct. 9, said Jay Van Rein, spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture. Two more moths were found Oct. 9 along Ramal Road, the same road where a moth was found in August.

The apple moth’s existence in California was confirmed in early 2007. The insect, a native of Australia, has since been found in most Bay Area counties and south to Monterey.

The state says the moth could damage numerous crops and the environment. Critics disagree and earlier this year they vigorously opposed the state’s plans to conduct aerial spraying over the Bay Area this summer. Officials since have dropped the spraying plan and announced that they plan to raise and eventually release millions of sterile moths in the infested areas.

Expansion of the quarantine area wouldn’t have a large effect on farmers, said Stefan Parnay, the chief deputy agricultural commissioner for Sonoma County. The land in question has some oat crops but mostly consists of wetlands. The land sits north of Highway 37 between Vallejo and Sears Point.

“It’s really down in the sloughs,” Parnay said. “There’s not a lot of agricultural areas there.”

The area is the second in the county to come under quarantine for the apple moth. The first is a 15-square-mile area near Sonoma where two moths were trapped in February and April.

No further moths have been found in the Sonoma Valley, officials said, and the state has suggested that the quarantine might be lifted there sometime this moth.