$267,000 Aimed at Bug Preying on Grapes

County supervisors are expected to accept $267,000 today from the state Department of Food and Agriculture to root out the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a pest described as the most serious threat ever to California’s grape crop.

Last month, the federal government declared an agricultural emergency because of the pest and gave California $36.3 million to combat it. Southern California has become a key battleground in the war to keep the insect from spreading throughout the state.

Ventura County’s portion of the federal money is expected to pay the salaries of four agricultural inspectors, who will make regular visits to local nurseries to search for the bug on host plants scheduled for export to grape-growing regions. That means that some inspectors who have been working on the sharpshooter problem will be able to focus on other tasks, including pesticide regulation and other pest inspections, said Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail.

The insect carries a bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, that causes Pierce’s disease. The disease, which is incurable, clogs a plant’s water-carrying tissues so that it slowly dies.

The disease has never been a real problem in Ventura County, despite the existence of sharpshooters for years, and is only cataclysmic for grapes, said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. He questioned how well an inspection process would work in stemming the tide of the insect.

“I doubt that they’ll be able to isolate it,” Laird said. “It’s spread through the state more than people think.” The point is “for us not to become [known as] the West Coast distributors of the glassy-winged sharpshooter.”

Experts said the half-inch-long, flying bugs like to munch on the stems of a wide variety of crops, including citrus--which is not susceptible to Pierce’s disease. The insects have spread along the ornamental oleander along highways and are visible along river bottoms, where they’re attracted to willow trees, said Paul Baradat, a pest control advisor at Green Thumb in Ventura.

Bob Kelly has a more pressing reason to worry. His Camarillo vineyard, Pacific Ridge, is one of the few grape-growers in the county. He hasn’t seen any evidence of the bug yet, and is fairly certain that his grapes are isolated enough to avoid any large-scale infestation.

But he knows there’s little he can do for his small acreage.

“We realize the whole thing could be completely wiped out,” he said. “But we’ll just hope for the best.”

Meanwhile, the plan to battle the sharpshooter has some other area farmers resentful that the state and federal governments are willing to fund a battle against a bug plaguing the powerful wine lobby, but have done little to stop the impending importation of Argentine lemons, which local citrus growers fear could spread unknown diseases to their orchards.

“There’s some grumbling. There’s no doubt about that,” said. But “we as a regulator have to do whatever we’re requested to do.”

Jim Churchill, an avocado and citrus grower in Ojai, said he didn’t begrudge the wine industry any of its weapons against the pest, but he hoped to see more help for growers in this county.

“They [grape growers] are an influential bunch of guys who have managed to motivate the state and federal government that this is a serious problem statewide,” said Churchill. “I wish we had that clout for avocado and citrus growers.”