In an attempt to curb an invasive moth infestation, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) will release stingerless wasps to organically control the population and protect crops in Sacramento and San Luis Obispo counties.
The light brown apple moth (LBAM), originating in Australia but now also widespread throughout the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland and New Caledonia, was first reported in California in 2007. According to a United States Department of Agriculture description of the LBAM, the species affects “over 1,000 plant species and more than 250 fruits and vegetables,” including cypress, redwood and oak trees, as well as grapes, nectarines and cherries.
Cal Poly horticulture and crop science assistant professor Michael Costello, said due to other pests that already affect grapes and fruits in California, the state worries about the effect of this species of moth.
“We already have two grape moth pests that are pretty closely related,” Costello said. “If it were just a grape thing, we could just deal with it. But (because) it feeds on lots of different fruit plants, we get a little worried.”
Steve Lyle, the director of public affairs for CDFA, said “the objective of all CDFA pest management programs is to stop the pest before it causes damage.”
In order to do this, the release of the wasps will be part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program, intended to not only suppress the effects of invasive pests, but also, suppress environmental effects.
Assistant professor David Headrick, who also works in the horticulture and crop science department and helped advise the secretary of the CDFA “regarding appropriate measures for (LBAM) eradication (and) control,” said the tiny, microscopic wasp, called a Trichogramma platneri, “seeks out” the eggs of LBAM and “insert(s its) own egg;” thus, the wasps help kill the moths biologically instead of using pesticides. Headrick said the wasp also is indigenous to California so it is already incorporated into the ecosystem.
“If we can deploy a native wasp to attack the LBAM populations, and hopefully, maintain them at non-economic levels, then to me that is a reasonable, responsible and environmentally-appropriate approach,” Headrick said. “Invasive species impact all of us and it’s important that we evaluate each one and make good decisions about what to do. Not doing anything is not a good approach.”
Costello said, however, that the wasp does not only kill LBAM, it also kills other species of moths and butterflies. In addition, he said if the CDFA wanted to “eradicate” the LBAM population, a large amount of wasps would need to be released, and even that would not kill the whole population.
“Even if (the wasps) were just looking for light brown apple moths, which they’re not, 90 percent would be the absolute best,” Costello said. “They are not going to find them all. And a lot of what they are going to find are (other moth species), not light brown apple moths.”
Yet, Costello said releasing more wasps into the ecosystem would not significantly affect other moth and butterfly populations.
Lyle also said the wasps would not be released in areas with endangered butterflies.
Using the wasps to curb the LBAM population comes after an effort in 2007 using pheromones in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. After spraying number 487, people reportedly complained that they had become ill due to the pheromones. Yet only 79 sought medical attention and only 45 of those had a Pesticide Illness Report filed, which doctors must file if they feel an illness is caused by pesticides.
The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, the California Department of Public Health and the state Department of Pesticide Regulation concluded in 2008 that there was not enough evidence to say the pheromones caused illness.
Costello said the pheromones are meant to only affect insects, as opposed to pesticides that affect both insects and humans. He said they should not make people sick, but he could not say with certainty that a small amount of people would be affected.
Headrick said the problem with the 2007 eradication attempt was the application, not the technology.
“The pheromone technology works well, the application method was a disaster,” Headrick said. “That’s water under the bridge, but it will be a long time before the citizens of the state will have any trust in the CDFA’s plans for invasive species eradication/control. Pheromone technologies are safely used day in and day out in a variety of cropping systems and effectively reduce pest populations without the use of pesticides.”
Additionally, according to a 2010 state environmental report, LBAMs have not caused any significant damages to crops. However, Lyle said they did cause damage to berries in Santa Cruz County. Costello said it may take time for the moths to become a significant problem. Yet, he felt releasing the wasps would help slow the growth of the LBAM population until perhaps a natural enemy that only attacks LBAM can be established. After that, Costello said at some point the growers will have to tackle the problem on their own, like with other pests.
“If (the state) can slow it, (and) help the researchers bring in a new natural enemy, that’s really going to (be the most effective method),” Costello said. “At some point they’ll say, we’re not involved anymore, we have to move on to something else.”
THE LIGHT BROWN APPLE MOTH (LBAM) IS NO THREAT.
Entomologists, three courts and the state senate agriculture committee all determined that the moth is a NON-ISSUE.
Only the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA) and chemical companies robbing taxpayers of $100 Million per year for unnecessary pesticide contracts are keeping this propaganda about LBAM alive.
These wasps are another unnecessary inappropriate method to extort taxpayers of their hard earned in-short-supply funds.
The expensive wasps will likely throw natural systems out of balance and that will create more problems that CDFA can then pretend to solve (for more $$$.)
In Northern California, these false claims about LBAM were uncovered and CDFA had to stop the unnecessary pesticide program there. CDFA is now pulling pesticide or wasp scams in San Diego and San Luis Obispo where people simply aren’t familiar with the truth about this fraudulent moth program.
The quarantines and interference with farming are very real, but they are caused by the CDFA, not LBAM.
Contact every agriculture commissioner in the state and you will find: NO DOCUMENTED DAMAGE FROM LBAM in the state of California. Media reports of damage are taken from false information given to the media by the CDFA.
A fifth generation California Farmer said about Steve Lyle, the PR Director for CDFA quoted repeatedly in this article: “Lies come out of his mouth like bats out of a cave.”
See a Professor’s Press Release on the Fraud of the CDFA LBAM program:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/10/07/18543314.php
Additional errors in this article:
1. Butterflies are not on email to know the boundaries of the wasp release so yes, many butterflies and many other moths will be affected and thrown out of natural balance. The worse it is, the better for CDFA as the bigger the $ program to “Fix it.”
2. Statistics projected that approximately 70,000 people got sick in the aerial spraying for LBAM based on the number of formal reports that were filed. Almost everyone who lived in the spray zone either got sick OR knew someone that did. And that doesn’t include the long-term illnesses and health maladies to all of those people, whether they had immediate symptoms or not
3. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) actually said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that the spray WASN’T the cause.
4. OEHHA identified the aerial spray over people’s homes and children’s schools as a CATEGORY 3 TOXIN. If poison attracts the male insect to the female, it is still called a “Pheromone.”
5. The PESTICIDE (they called “Pheromone”) aerially sprayed onto people has since been banned in the United States by the EPA as a result of a federal lawsuit filed based on this aerial spray incident.
6. The berry damage in Santa Cruz county was NOT determined to be from LBAM. If it was LBAM, Lyle would have documentation and of course he does NOT.
It is difficult to believe how the agriculture community continues to chase LBAM: the myth of mass destruction. After reviewing more almost 100 years of LBAM data, court rulings that no case for a “emergency” existed regarding LBAM, and a USDA-sponsored National Academy of Sciences review showing the manner in which the fear of LBAM has been exaggerated by CDFA, it is amazing they have the audacity to keep it up. Beyond the basics, there are some factual errors in the article. There are already hundreds of natural predators in California against LBAM, there are almost the same number of parasitoids against LBAM in California as there are in New Zealand, and the scientific literature demonstrates clearly that LBAM mortality rates are typically 90% and higher. Numerous formal surveys worldwide demonstrate clearly that LBAM does no damage of significance to any trees. This was one of the primary fallacies spun by CDFA to stimulate public fear playing on environmental concerns. Vineyards all over the world, with rare exception, consider LBAM to be a nothing pest. Numerous surveys of Vineyards in New Zealand and Australia, whose wine market has grown hundreds of fold in the past 20 years, similarly acknowledge that LBAM is an inconsequential insect to wine producing. We need only look at our own experience; after 113 years that LBAM has been in Hawaii, it has done nothing to nothing.Hawaii has been exporting fruits and vegetables for the entire time. Ask CDFA EXACTLY how much physical damage occurred to the berries they are citing (I believe it was a half-dozen among a half-million) and ask EXACTLY how they knew it was LBAM that caused the damage and not the several other native leafrollers that are in every ecosystem in California. One thing is true; the agriculture industry will have to monitor and control for LBAM as is done in Australia and New Zealand (because the US forces them to do so); but not really to control for damage but to control for USDA-imposed quarantines. I am wondering how control and eradication are possible when some of the prime areas in California where LBAM is most prolific are in monarch butterfly territories. The only way to find a predator that specifically ONLY attacks LBAM is for yet another non-native species to be introduced. And the eradication programs go round and round and they never stop. Look at CDFA’s history; they have been eradicating the same 9 insects in California every year for the past 26 years. Very sad example of entrenched bureaucracy where the agriculture industry, taxpayers, and public lose out and bureaucracy wins.