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Cold may reduce sharpshooter numbers
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Photo courtesy/University of California Published:PHOENIX - An extra-cold winter may help efforts to eradicate a pest that can destroy vineyards and threatens the state's $18 million wine industry.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter was found in a Sierra Vista area nursery in 2005 and efforts have been under way since then to keep it from spreading and possibly infecting vineyards with a bacteria that can kill the plants. This year's cold weather may be the best chance to naturally eradicate the bug, because the insects can't reproduce if it becomes too cold, a wine industry official said. "If they can't reproduce, basically they go extinct in that area pretty quickly," said Rod Keeling, president of the Arizona Wine Growers Association. "This winter will be the coldest one of the last three, and hopefully that will kill this bug off." Ed Hermes, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said it is too early to tell if the colder weather has had an effect on the glassy-winged sharpshooters. The true effect won't likely be known until April. But, he said, the fact this winter is colder than last winter, when the pests survived, makes state agriculture officials hopeful. Rob Call, a horticulture agent with the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in Willcox, said that from the information he's reviewed, the temperatures would have to go into the low teens to start having a deathly effect on the pests. The glassy-winged sharpshooter, like other insects, also have been known to go into insulation to wait out the winter months, Call said. The pest doesn't reproduce due to the cold, like many insects, but Call said they do wait out the winter months as an adult. The typical life span of a glassy-winged sharpshooter is 30 to 60 days in warmer temperatures, Call said. Keeling said it's believed the insect has not moved from the area immediately around Sierra Vista, and traps will be set out again this spring to see if the pest made it through the winter. If it did, eradication efforts started last year will begin anew. "If it gets into the vineyards, we're out of business," he said. "If they come back after this winter, then we know we're going to have a long-term problem." The sharpshooter transmits bacteria that causes Pierce's disease, which blocks the flow of water, causing plants to wither and die. Call said he heard that none of the glassy-winged sharpshooters trapped in Sierra Vista last year carried Pierce's disease. In August, the number of glassy-winged sharpshooters found in Sierra Vista was at 132. If the cold weather doesn't eradicate the pest, Hermes said, the state will continue spraying and putting out traps - the yellow sticky sheets in trees throughout Sierra Vista are an example of this. Gov. Janet Napolitano allocated $528,000 to be used toward personnel, transportation, treatments and spraying against the pest. The funding supplemented $200,000 that Napolitano allocated earlier in 2006 when she declared a state of emergency due to the pest. In addition to the state's yearlong eradication effort, all host plants coming into the state must be certified as glassy-winged sharpshooter free, per an external quarantine order signed by Donald Butler, director of the Arizona Department of Agriculture. The state has hired employees to hang more than 6,000 sticky traps across Arizona and assist with monitoring efforts. Professional exterminators also were contracted to begin treating a three-mile radius in Sierra Vista, starting at the point where the sharpshooters were identified. Sharpshooters were discovered in California in 1990 and Pierce's disease wiped out more than 1,000 acres of grapes in Riverside and Kern counties by 2001. Arizona has 26 wineries and about 32 vineyards, figures that have nearly doubled since 2002. The state produces 60,000 gallons of wine a year from areas near Willcox, Sonoita and Sedona. Sierra Vista Herald | Bisbee Review staff and wire reports.
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