- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The European Grapevine Moth Team received the 2016 "distinguished service award for outstanding team." The members "coordinated a program that saved the wine and table grape industries from economic disaster caused by an invasive insect,” according to UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston.
“The impact of the team's work has reduced quarantines for European grapevine moth from 10 counties in 2010 to a portion of one county at the end of 2015 and no moths have been trapped in the last remaining quarantine zone since 2013," Humiston noted. "If no European grapevine moths are trapped in this zone in 2016, the last remaining quarantine for the pest will be lifted."
Humiston called the team "an excellent example of UC ANR working with government and industry partners under the Endemic and Invasive Pests and Diseases Strategic Initiative.”
Zalom, a past president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA) and a past director of the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM), is the lead author of the European Grapevine Moth provisional guidelines page on the UC IPM website. Co-authors are Lucia Varela, UC Cooperative Extension, North Coast and Mountain Region, and Monica Cooper, UC Cooperative Extension, Napa County.
In addition to Zalom, Varela and Cooper, the European Grapevine Moth Team included:
- Walter Bentley, UC IPM entomologist emeritus
- Larry Bettiga, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Monterey County
- Kent Daane, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM)
- Rhonda Smith, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Napa County
- Robert Van Steenwyk, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Berkeley ESPM
- Joyce Strand, UC IPM academic coordinator emeritus
The distinguished service awards are given biennially for outstanding contributions to the teaching, research and public service mission of UC ANR.
The European Grapevine Moth is a serious pest of grapes; it causes significant damage to the flowers and berries. Native to Southern Italy, it was first reported in the United States in Napa County vineyards in October 2009. It is now found throughout Europe, North and West Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Russia.
(Editor's Note: See other UC ANR awards presented)
