Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ornamental plants and Australian Apple Moths

I have written before about pheromone spraying by air over populated areas on the Monterey county Coast of Central California. However, there are new and important facts to share. First, since the Australian Light Brown Apple Moth was discovered in Alameda county California it is thought that they arrived on ornamental plants by sea or Air into the San Francisco Bay area. It is also thought that they have been in California for 2 or 3 years already before someone found one in their backyard in Alameda. Since they lay 300 to 1500 eggs each on ornamental plants or various crops edible by humans it is likely they already are in other states after being here for three years or so already. Stopping and inspecting all ornamental and other crops for these eggs would be tedious to impossible so it is likely we are going to hear a lot more about the Australian light brown Apple moth throughout North America, Canada and Mexico and then on down into South America. This seems pretty inevitable at this point.

I have come to the conclusion that California is just covering it's butt by spraying populated areas for the time when other states or the Federal Government try to blame California for the problem since the moth now lives in Australia, New Zealand, England and Ireland I suppose it was only a matter of time that someone accidentally brought some to the United STates somewhere on ornamental plants or trees of some kind.

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