Voa Agriculture Report - California Growers Face Unwelcome Import: Light Brown Apple Moth

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is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

California is to control an invasion of the light brown apple . The insect is native to Australia and is now widely in New Zealand, Britain, Ireland and New Caledonia. had them in the late eighteen hundreds, but this the first discovery on the mainland United States.

say it could cause more than one hundred thirty dollars in crop damage and control costs if the spreads to agricultural production areas. California is the nation's agricultural state. The industry is valued at thirty-two billion .

The light brown apple moth can attack more than hundred fifty kinds of plants and trees. It causes by feeding on leaves, new growth and fruit, including ---- bad news for California's wine industry.

More than thousand traps have been deployed as part of the to fight the invasion. As of last week the had caught almost five thousand light brown apple moths. insects have been found in several counties but mostly Santa Cruz and Monterey along the Central Coast. The have mostly been found in the San Francisco Bay , to the north.

The first discovery came in . A private citizen captured two suspicious moths in a trap on his property near Berkeley. A laboratory confirmed identity in March. Then, in May, the United States of Agriculture ordered action to prevent the spread of insect.

It restricted the movement of products including plants, cut flowers and greenery from several counties in and all of Hawaii. Shipments must be inspected and insect-free before they can be transported to other states.

California Department of Food and Agriculture says growers have choice to destroy affected plants or treat them with chemical, chlorpyrifos. Another substance, Bt, is a natural organism as a biological control. In June, weekly ground treatments Bt began on more than two hundred properties in counties, Contra Costa and Napa. Napa is famous for wine grapes.

Control plans are being developed for wider area, based in part on the advice of from Australia and New Zealand.

Mexico has suspended imports some products from the affected areas. It also is more inspection of products from outside the affected counties.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written Jerilyn Watson. I'm Faith Lapidus.

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