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More Sharpshooter Eggs Found in Sonoma

Two more egg-mass spottings increase vineyard pest concerns

Lynn Alley

Posted: Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Following a string of recent discoveries in Sonoma and Napa counties, more evidence of the vine-threatening glassy-winged sharpshooters has been spotted in Sonoma County.

On March 17 and 18, Sonoma County agriculture inspectors at two different retail nursery outlets--one in Santa Rosa and one in Petaluma--found two more viable sharpshooter egg masses on shipments of plants from wholesale nurseries in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, which is known to be infested with glassy-winged sharpshooters. Both shipments were returned to the Ventura County nurseries from which they originated. Unlike Napa County, Sonoma County does not inspect nursery shipments coming from counties considered to be uninfested.

This raises the total number of sharpshooter egg-mass discoveries in Sonoma and Napa counties to seven during the past two months. The leaf-hopping sharpshooter spreads the vine-destroying Pierce's disease and is believed to have entered California in the early 1990s via plants shipped in from Florida.

Sonoma County agriculture commissioner Lisa Correia said she is currently working with Ventura County agricultural authorities to step up treatment protocols at the county’s nurseries in an all-out effort to stem the number of sharpshooter egg masses showing up at nurseries in Sonoma County.

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