CCC News Story

Fighting sharpshooter
Crew works to remove habitat for ag pest

The Reporter
Vacaville,CA

A khaki-clad work crew labored behind Vacaville's Wal-Mart, clearing an overgrown lot that was choked with vegetation.

The sweaty work Wednesday by the California Conservation Corps, however, was much more than a little spring landscaping for the world's largest retailer.

Evidence of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a notorious agricultural pest that has a toehold in Vacaville, was found recently in the innocuous-looking acacia, plumbago and other ornamental plants near the city's factory stores.

The discovery was the first evidence this season that the sharpshooters, who lie dormant all winter, are becoming active again

But Solano County agricultural inspectors have been on the lookout for the pest.

In May, when they found two tiny sharpshooter nymphs, not yet able to fly, and 13 egg masses in the overgrown lot they knew what to do.

First, the area was sprayed to kill the sharpshooter. And on Wednesday, the California Conservation Corps team was called in to knock down the vegetation on the lot to remove habitat for the insect.

"This was a hot spot last year," said Susan Cohen, Solano County agricultural commissioner. "We've been checking it and keeping our eye on it this year."

An infestation of the glassy-winged sharpshooter was found in summer 2004 in roughly a half-mile area that is centered near Vacaville's Wal-Mart, where the pest was first discovered.

It is the closest that the ag pest has been to Napa County's multibillion-dollar wine industry, a prospect that has local and state agricultural officials uneasy.

The sharpshooter, which can fly up to a couple of miles, spreads the infamous Pierce's disease. Past sharpshooter infestations have destroyed acres and acres of vineyards in Southern California.

But county officials put a brighter face on the local infestation.

If you have to have sharpshooters, Cohen said, the suburbs in Vacaville are quite a ways from any agricultural land that could be impacted by the pest.

As for recently finding the sharpshooter near Wal-Mart, "residual" sharpshooters are to be expected, Cohen said.

The county aggressively sprayed and searched for sharpshooters last season, and then hit a lull as any remaining sharpshooters laid dormant during the short, cold days of winter.

The find in May of a couple of nymphs and egg masses was to be expected as the insects became more active. Hopefully, it was a small number of sharpshooters or a lone female that started the breeding this season, said Linda Pinfold, deputy agricultural commissioner.

Cohen said she was not surprised by the find.

"It's not unexpected," Cohen said.

Solano County hopes to be one of the success stories in the battle against the glassy-winged sharpshooter.

Contra Costa County eradicated the insect after reducing the numbers of the pest over several years, agricultural officials said.

Solano County officials have surveyed around the spot of this year's find as well as within the half-mile radius that was known to play host to the insect last year.

But so far, other than the initial find, no other sharpshooters have been discovered.

"We found no more, just here," Cohen said.