5 apple moths found; quarantine may grow

Four more light brown apple moths have been found near Sonoma and, for the first time, one has been discovered near Sebastopol, bringing to 10 the number collected in the past two months in Sonoma County.

As a result, the state may need to establish a new quarantine area south of Sonoma. The county already has quarantined land in the Carneros region near Napa County.

The Sebastopol discovery at a local nursery is considered an isolated case and is not sufficient to prompt a quarantine, agricultural officials said.

Within such areas, grape growers and other farmers cannot transport their crops until their fields are inspected and declared free of the pest. This season, such inspections didn't prevent the grape harvest from progressing, officials said.

Even though the state has established quarantine areas in the county, it has yet to put up chemical-laced twist ties or conduct other efforts to eradicate the moths. Growers would like to see that changed, fearing that the moth infestation is spreading.

"Something needs to be done," Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, said Tuesday.

The discovery is renewing debate on how to respond to the invasive pest in the county. Farmers and some environmental groups say the state could safely place the pheromone-scented twist ties on plants in infested areas to disrupt the moth's mating cycle, a strategy that works best when few moths are present.

But a critic who earlier this year led a successful effort to keep the twist ties out of the Sonoma area still opposes their use.

Inspectors collected three moths Nov. 11 south of Sonoma near Arnold Drive and Felder Road, Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Lisa Correia said Tuesday.

A fourth moth was found the first week of November within the boundaries of a former moth quarantine area established around Sonoma and Boyes Hot Springs.

The fifth moth was found Thursday south of Sebastopol near Gravenstein Highway South and Old Gravenstein Highway, Correia said.

Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, said the Sebastopol-area moth was found at a nursery. Officials are inspecting the other vegetation there and are trying to determine whether the moth may have come in on a new shipment of plants.

"Experience tells us when you have a detection in a nursery it well could have come from another nursery," Lyle said. He cited state policy in declining to name the affected nursery.

The moth, a native of Australia, was first confirmed in California 21 months ago. Since then more than 46,000 moths have been collected around the state, including about 30,000 so far this year.

Inspectors found the first such moth in Sonoma County last February, and in the months that followed, more moths were found, leading to the establishment of two quarantine areas.

The first quarantine around Sonoma and Boyes Hot Springs was lifted last month after officials declared the area free of the pest.

But another quarantine remains centered near the boundary line of Sonoma and Napa counties south of Highway 12.

The three moths found near Felder Road may prompt a new quarantine area.

Frey said the quarantines put growers at economic risk, and the twist ties would be much less toxic than growers using insecticides later to get rid of an infestation.

The twist ties, which are used in organic farming, don't kill the moth, but the pheromone's scent confuses the male as it seeks a female.

Also calling the twist ties safe is Dave Henson, executive director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. He noted Tuesday that the Web sites of both California Certified Organic Farmers and the Pesticide Action Network North America support such use of the pheromones.

Both those groups and Henson opposed the state's plan earlier this year for aerial spraying of pheromones elsewhere in California. The state eventually replaced aerial spraying with a program to breed and release millions of sterile moths.

Henson said he would defer to county and state officials on the exact approach for an eradication program here. But he insisted the twist ties are "a prudent precautionary way to ensure that we don't have an infestation."

Opposing the twist ties is Yannick Phillips, an activist who this summer went door to door in two Sonoma Valley neighborhoods warning residents of the state's plans to place the ties there. The state eventually dropped the plan, saying the twist ties were no longer needed there. Many neighbors there expressed relief.

Phillips said Tuesday the state has failed to show that the moth actually causes damage, and it hasn't demonstrated that the twist ties are safe.

"Until they show us proof, I don't think they should go through with this eradication program," she said. Instead, she supports trapping and monitoring the moth.

Lyle, the state spokesman, said state and federal agriculture officials are still discussing whether to develop an eradication program for the county. The officials, he said, are "evaluating in an overall context of where do we go from here."

Correia, as county agricultural commissioner, said she defers to the state on how to proceed. But she said it isn't surprising that more moths are showing up here.

"You're seeing what will naturally happen if we do nothing, that the pest will spread," she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat

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