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California’s winegrape industry has committed $820,000 toward the eradication of a grapevine pest that has spread to 40 counties in the state, but the figure represents a small fraction of what might be needed to get the job done.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter is a pest that looks like a cricket and spreads the fatal grapevine ailment known as Pierce’s disease, a bacterial infection that blocks the water-conducting systems in plants, causing them to dry out. The disease is incurable.
In May, the California Department of Food and Agriculture found that grapevines infested with the sharpshooter were supplied to multiple Costco locations across California, including in the Tri-Valley. The plants, numbering in the thousands, came from Burchell Nursery in Fresno County.
Since then, agricultural officials in counties have contacted more than 3,000 customers who bought the infested grapevines, inspected or destroyed more than 2,900 plants, and set more than 2,700 insect traps, according to a news release from the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
To support this effort, which involves tracking the pest over the next three years, the Pierce’s Disease and Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Board at the California Department of Food and Agriculture is committing $820,000 in emergency funding.
The board comprises winegrape growers in the state and acts in an advisory capacity to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, but the funding is not coming from the state. Instead, the money is contributed by winegrape growers, who pay an assessment – a fee tied to the value of grapes they produce – to fund research and outreach to protect the state’s wine industry from the sharpshooter.
“California’s winegrape industry is facing some of the hardest economic times in a generation, but we recognize what is at stake if this destructive pest becomes established in Northern California,” Trey Irwin, board chair, said in the news release. “Putting $820,000 from the Board’s limited reserves toward this effort is a major commitment for our industry and shows how seriously we’re taking this threat.”
A 2025 study funded in part by the board estimated that if the sharpshooter is allowed to spread unchecked, it could cost the state’s winegrape growers an additional $56 million a year in lost production and vine replacement.
The pest already costs growers roughly $48 million in lost winegrape production and vine replacement every year, the study added.
But $820,000 represents a drop in the bucket of what the industry needs to stave off this threat, according to Michael Miller, the director of government relations for the California Association of Winegrape Growers.
“At a minimum, I think you’re looking at $30 to $35 million dollars,” Miller said in an interview. “When you’re looking at the cost of putting out traps, you’re contacting people at home, finding out where it went, going out and dealing with this issue – it is a lot of leg work.”
Miller said that the $30 million figure is an estimate for just one year, which represents two life cycles of the insect.
After the first two life cycles, the industry will be in a better position to assess how effective eradication has been and then direct future efforts, Miller added.
In June, a coalition that included Bay Area lawmakers asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for $32.2 million in emergency funding to tackle this challenge.
Miller said as of now, it remains an “ongoing request” and that in the meantime, the industry is focusing its efforts on securing funding from the state legislature before it adjourns at the end of this month.
The good news, Miller said, is that the pest has only been found in private residences so far and has not spread to commercial vineyards. But the time to act is now.
“The need to deal with this and get it under control is urgent,” Miller said. “This is a problem that could potentially just get worse and worse.”
– Story by Tanay Gokhale, Bay City News Service
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