Science
Sex, radiation and mummies: How farms are fighting a pesky almond moth without pesticides
In a windowless shack on the far outskirts of Fresno, an ominious red glow illuminates a lab filled with X-ray machines, shelves of glowing boxes, a quietly humming incubator and a miniature wind tunnel.
While the scene looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, its actually part of an experimental program to prevent a damaging almond pest from successfully mating.
A moth trap hangs from the branch of an almond tree.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
With California almond growers reeling from dropping nut prices and rising costs, the pests have only added to their woes.
Every year, the navel orangeworm eats through roughly 2% of California’s almonds before they can make it to grocery store shelves. Last year, it was almost double that.
While that might seem small, if you do the math “it’s going to be a lot of millions of dollars lost to this pest,” said David Haviland, a Kern County farm advisor with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. “And that’s despite the control methods that people use,” he said.
California produces 80% of the world’s almonds, yet in 2022 the production value of the nut fell 34% compared with the previous year.
Scientists say climate change could make the navel orangeworm problem even worse, with hotter temperatures allowing the moths to reproduce even faster. (Despite its name, the insect has largely left citrus farms unbothered and is in fact a moth.)
Traditionally, nut farmers have tackled the insect with chemical pesticides, or by destroying “mummies” — almonds left over after harvest. Mummies are a favorite winter shelter for the bugs.
However, research is increasingly showing that chemical pesticides are not only harmful to the environment but to people as well. One new study found that the impact of nearby pesticide use on cancer incidence “may rival that of smoking.”
“When you have to don a spacesuit, basically, to apply something, you’re definitely thinking, ‘This is not good,’” said Houston Wilson, an entomologist with UC ANR’s Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center and the mastermind behind the sci-fi shack.
“Across the board, folks want to get away from chemical controls,” he said.
So farmers and researchers have been searching for other non-pesticide alternatives.
Removing almost every last mummy from every tree in an orchard can be effective, but since it must be done manually, it can become too expensive and complex for some growers.
Another tactic that’s been used since around 2010 is to cover orchards with disorienting levels of sex pheromones to confuse horny moths — a technique known as “mating disruption.”
But with limited budgets and climate change threatening to make the pest situation worse, researchers are studying another yet-to-be-proven approach: sterilizing almost a million moths a day with radiation and dropping them out of planes.
Houston Wilson looks over trapped moths at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, Calif.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
The idea behind the technique is that by flooding orchards with sterilized insects, they will mate with fertile insects and produce no offspring, reducing the overall population.
The simplest way to sterilize the bugs is to use radiation. Since their reproductive genes tend to mutate faster, the right dose can leave them relatively unfazed but unable to reproduce.
At the request of almond and pistachio farmers, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has been working with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 2018 to source sterilized moths from a Phoenix lab.
An X-ray machine designed to sterilize moths is shown at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
The lab sterilizes about 750,000 bugs per day, then chills the moths to put them to sleep and ships them off to California. The bugs are dropped from an airplane hundreds of feet in the air. Often too sleepy to fly, the insects crash into the hard ground or almond trees.
From there, the survivors have only one job: have sex.
Through this test program, the USDA hopes to perfect the best ways to get moths to reproduce in the lab and give them the right dose of radiation that will sterilize them but not severely injure or disorient them.
The program has yet to put a significant dent in the moth population, though, because they can’t produce enough sterile bugs.
Right now, researchers are only finding a couple of sterile insects in traps for every hundred wild fertile moths. For the technique to be effective, they’ll need to deploy dozens of sterile bugs for every wild one.
Anisa Bel Guzman counts moths at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, Calif.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
Matthew Aubuchon, national policy manager at the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, estimated that the Phoenix facility could produce up to 8 million moths per day with enough staff working around the clock.
While opening more facilities in California would help, the program uses cobalt to produce high-energy radiation to sterilize the bugs — which is expensive and requires the lab to take extensive safety and security measures.
Wilson’s sci-fi shack at Kearney might hold a solution that is cheaper and easier to scale.
Instead of using cobalt or other radioactive materials, Wilson’s team uses an X-ray machine to irradiate the pests. (Unlike a radioactive substance, an X-ray machine will not emit radiation when it is turned off.)
Then, the team puts their X-rayed bugs and the sterilized insects from Phoenix through a series of tests to determine which methods produce the healthiest, sterile moths.
The tests include gluing moths to the end of a stick suspended in the air. The stick rotates like a carousel as the moths flutter around and researchers record how well they can fly.
Houston Wilson looks into an insect wind tunnel as researchers look for innovative ways to manage an invasive almond pest.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
The researchers also place moths in a wind tunnel and release sex pheromones to see if the excited bugs are able to locate the smell. (Unfortunately for the insects, there are no potential mates at the end of the tunnel.)
While the team doesn’t yet produce enough X-rayed moths to test them in a full-blown almond orchard, they do send the Phoenix moths into their final test: releasing them into their seven-acre almond farm on the Kearney campus to see how good they are at actually finding fertile moths to mate with.
Houston Wilson looks over a navel orangeworm trap in an almond field in Parlier.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
The researchers at Kearney may be in a race against time, however.
Scientists say it’s possible that climate change will continue to tip the weather in the moths’ favor. The metabolism of navel orangeworms — like many agricultural pests — is tied to temperature. The hotter it is, the faster they grow and reproduce.
A 2021 study found that the moths, which can have life cycles as short as just one month, may be able to squeeze in another generation each summer before holing up in nuts for the winter.
“For each additional generation, their population is increasing at an exponential rate,” said Tapan Pathak, an author on the study and a professor at UC Merced.
“If this additional generation is coinciding with … harvest,” Pathak said, “then they become unmarketable. That’s a huge economic loss.”
However, the food web is complicated, and just because the warmer weather benefits the moths on paper doesn’t mean the moths will end up on top.
Every year, navel orangeworms eat through roughly 2% of California’s almonds before they can make it to grocery store shelves.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
“Navel orangeworm could be a nightmare … but it could also become less of a problem because all the things that eat it benefit more from the heat than the navel orangeworm,” said Haviland. “The crystal ball is certainly not clear enough to know what will happen.”
Researchers stress that successful pest control will require multiple measures.
“What we’ve learned through integrated pest management is that the timing of one or staggering of different approaches together yields results for the growers,” said Aubuchon.
The tried-and-true non-pesticide method growers have been using since the moths’ unannounced arrival in the 1940s is to simply ensure all the almonds are either harvested or destroyed by the time winter arrives.
But for this method to be effective, there must be no more than two almonds left on every tree in an orchard. This can be hard to achieve in wet weather.
Rain makes almond branches soggy and flexible, which makes it hard to snap nuts off using an industrial shaker. Damp earth can also make it difficult for machines to get close to the trees.
Instead, workers must use poles to knock almonds off manually. As effective as this is, increasing labor costs mean some farms just can’t afford it.
Anisa Bel Guzman counts moths at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier.
(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)
While researchers say the sterile insect technique still has a lot of hurdles to clear before it will be widely effective, they say it holds great promise.
“You’re literally managing a pest by preventing it from being born in the first place,” said Haviland of both sterile insect technique and pheromone mating disruption. “To think that something like that was possible 10 or 15 years ago — nobody could imagine that growers would be using such innovative techniques as those.”
For the last few years, the Marine Mammal Center has been testing any patients with bird-flu-like symptoms, which include respiratory and neurological problems, for the virus.
California lawmakers are taking aim at proposed rules to implement a state law aimed at curbing plastic waste, saying the draft regulations proposed by CalRecycle undermine the letter and intent of the legislation.
In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and two of his top administrators, the lawmakers said CalRecycle exceeded its authority by drafting regulations that don’t abide by the terms set out by the law, Senate Bill 54.
“While we support many changes in the current draft regulations, we have identified several provisions that are inconsistent with the governing statute … and where CalRecycle has exceeded its authority under the law,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Newsom, California Environmental Protection agency chief Yana Garcia, and Zoe Heller, director of the state’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle.
The letter, which was written by Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) and Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), was signed by 21 other lawmakers, including Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) and Assemblymembers Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) and Monique Limón (D-Goleta).
CalRecycle submitted informal draft regulations two weeks ago that are designed to implement the law, which was authored by Allen, and signed into law by Newsom in 2022.
The lawmakers’ concerns are directed at the draft regulations’ potential approval of polluting recycling technologies — which the language of the law expressly prohibits — as well as the document’s expansive exemption for products and packaging that fall under the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
The inclusion of such blanket exemptions is “not only contrary to the statute but also risks significantly increasing the program’s costs,” the lawmakers wrote. They said the new regulations allow “producers to unilaterally determine which products are subject to the law, without a requirement or process to back up such a claim.”
Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesman for the governor, said in an email that Newsom “was clear when he asked CalRecycle to restart these regulations that they should work to minimize costs for small businesses and families, and these rules are a step in the right direction …”
At a workshop held at the agency’s headquarters in Sacramento this week, CalRecycle staff responded to similar criticisms, and underscored that these are informal draft regulations, which means they can be changed.
“I know from comments we’ve already been receiving that some of the provisions, as we have written them … don’t quite come across in the way that we intended,” said Karen Kayfetz, chief of CalRecycle’s Product Stewardship branch, adding that she was hopeful “a robust conversation” could help highlight areas where interpretations of the regulations’ language differs from the agency’s intent.
“It was not our intent, of course, to ever go outside of the statute, and so to the extent that it may be interpreted in the language that we’ve provided, that there are provisions that extend beyond … it’s our wish to narrow that back down,” she said.
These new draft regulations are the expedited result of the agency’s attempt to satisfy Newsom’s concerns about the law, which he said could increase costs to California households if not properly implemented.
Newsom rejected the agency’s first attempt at drafting regulations — the result of nearly three years of negotiations by scores of stakeholders, including plastic producers, package developers, agricultural interests, environmental groups, municipalities, recycling companies and waste haulers — and ordered the waste agency to start the process over.
Critics say the new draft regulations cater to industry and could result in even higher costs to both California households, which have seen large increases in their residential waste hauling fees, as well as to the state’s various jurisdictions, which are taxed with cleaning up plastic waste and debris clogging the state’s rivers, highways, beaches and parks.
The law is molded on a series of legislative efforts described as Extended Producer Responsibility laws, which are designed to shift the cost of waste removal and disposal from the state’s jurisdictions and taxpayers to the industries that produce the waste — theoretically incentivizing a circular economy, in which product and packaging producers develop materials that can be reused, recycled or composted.
As promised, federal health officials have dropped longstanding recommendations that healthy children and healthy pregnant women should get the COVID-19 vaccines.
“The COVID-19 vaccine schedule is very clear. The vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women. The vaccine is not recommended for healthy children,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a post on X on Friday.
In formal documents, health officials offer “no guidance” on whether pregnant women should get the vaccine, and ask that parents talk with a healthcare provider before getting the vaccine for their children.
The decision was done in a way that is still expected to require insurers to pay for COVID-19 vaccines for children should their parents still want the shots for them.
The new vaccine guidelines were posted to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday.
The insurance question
It wasn’t immediately clear whether insurers will still be required under federal law to pay for vaccinations for pregnant women.
The Trump administration’s decision came amid criticism from officials at the nation’s leading organizations for pediatricians and obstetricians. Some doctors said there is no new evidence to support removing the recommendation that healthy pregnant women and healthy children should get the COVID vaccine.
“This situation continues to make things unclear and creates confusion for patients, providers and payers,” the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement Friday.
Earlier in the week, the group’s president, Dr. Steven Fleischman, said the science hasn’t changed, and that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe during pregnancy, and protects both the mom-to-be and their infants after birth.
“It is very clear that COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic,” Fleischman said in a statement.
Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, criticized the recommendation change as being rolled out in a “conflicting, confusing” manner, with “no explanation of the evidence used to reach their conclusions.”
“For many families, the COVID vaccine will remain an important way they protect their child and family from this disease and its complications, including long COVID,” Kressly said in a statement.
Some experts said the Trump administration should have waited to hear recommendations from a committee of doctors and scientists that typically advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunization recommendations, which is set to meet in late June.
California’s view
The California Department of Public Health on Thursday said it supported the longstanding recommendation that “COVID-19 vaccines be available for all persons aged 6 months and older who wish to be vaccinated.”
The changes come as the CDC has faced an exodus of senior leaders and has lacked an acting director. Typically, as was the case during the first Trump administration and in the Biden administration, it is the CDC director who makes final decisions on vaccine recommendations. The CDC director has traditionally accepted the consensus viewpoint of the CDC’s panel of doctors and scientists serving on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Even with the longstanding recommendations, vaccination rates were relatively low for children and pregnant women. As of late April, 13% of children, and 14.4% of pregnant women, had received the latest updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. About 23% of adults overall received the updated vaccine, as did 27.8% of seniors age 65 and over.
The CDC estimates that since October, there have been 31,000 to 50,000 COVID deaths and between 270,000 and 430,000 COVID hospitalizations.
Here are some key points about the CDC’s decision:
New vaccination guidance for healthy children
Previously, the CDC’s guidance was simple: everyone ages 6 months and up should get an updated COVID vaccination. The most recent version was unveiled in September, and is officially known as the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine.
As of Thursday, the CDC, on its pediatric immunization schedule page, says that for healthy children — those age 6 months to 17 years — decisions about COVID vaccination should come from “shared clinical decision-making,” which is “informed by a decision process between the healthcare provider and the patient or parent/guardian.”
“Where the parent presents with a desire for their child to be vaccinated, children 6 months and older may receive COVID-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances,” the CDC says.
The vaccine-skeptic secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., contended in a video posted on Tuesday there was a “lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.”
However, an earlier presentation by CDC staff said that, in general, getting an updated vaccine provides both children and adults additional protection from COVID-related emergency room and urgent care visits.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious diseases expert, said he would have preferred the CDC retain its broader recommendation that everyone age 6 months and up get the updated vaccine.
“It’s simpler,” Chin-Hong said. He added there’s no new data out there that to him suggests children shouldn’t be getting the updated COVID vaccine.
A guideline that involves “shared decision-making,” Chin-Hong said, “is a very nebulous recommendation, and it doesn’t result in a lot of people getting vaccines.”
Kressly, of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the shared clinical decision-making model is challenging to implement “because it lacks clear guidance for the conversations between a doctor and a family. Doctors and families need straightforward, evidence-based guidance, not vague, impractical frameworks.”
Some experts had been worried that the CDC would make a decision that would’ve ended the federal requirement that insurers cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccines for children. The out-of-pocket cost for a COVID-19 vaccine can reach around $200.
New vaccine guidance for pregnant women
In its adult immunization schedule for people who have medical conditions, the CDC now says it has “no guidance” on whether pregnant women should get the COVID-19 vaccine.
In his 58-second video on Tuesday, Kennedy did not explain why he thought pregnant women should not be recommended to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Chin-Hong, of UCSF, called the decision to drop the vaccination recommendation for pregnant women “100%” wrong.
Pregnancy brings with it a relatively compromised immune system. Pregnant women have “a high chance of getting infections, and they get more serious disease — including COVID,” Chin-Hong said.
A pregnant woman getting vaccinated also protects the newborn. “You really need the antibodies in the pregnant person to go across the placenta to protect the newborn,” Chin-Hong said.
It’s especially important, Chin-Hong and others say, because infants under 6 months of age can’t be vaccinated against COVID-19, and they have as high a risk of severe complications as do seniors age 65 and over.
Not the worst-case scenario for vaccine proponents
Earlier in the week, some experts worried the new rules would allow insurers to stop covering the cost of the COVID vaccine for healthy children.
Their worries were sparked by the video message on Tuesday, in which Kennedy said that “the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.”
By late Thursday, the CDC came out with its formal decision — the agency dropped the recommendation for healthy children, but still left the shot on the pediatric immunization schedule.
Leaving the COVID-19 vaccine on the immunization schedule “means the vaccine will be covered by insurance” for healthy children, the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement.
How pharmacies and insurers are responding
There are some questions that don’t have immediate answers. Will some vaccine providers start requiring doctor’s notes in order for healthy children and healthy pregnant women to get vaccinated? Will it be harder for children and pregnant women to get vaccinated at a pharmacy?
In a statement, CVS Pharmacy said it “follows federal guidance and state law regarding vaccine administration and are monitoring any changes that the government may make regarding vaccine eligibility.” The insurer Aetna, which is owned by CVS, is also monitoring any changes federal officials make to COVID-19 vaccine eligibility “and will evaluate whether coverage adjustments are needed.”
Blue Shield of California said it will not change its practices on covering COVID-19 vaccines.
“Despite the recent federal policy change on COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children and pregnant women, Blue Shield of California will continue to cover COVID-19 vaccines for all eligible members,” the insurer said in a statement. “The decision on whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is between our member and their provider. Blue Shield does not require prior authorization for COVID-19 vaccines.”
Under California law, health plans regulated by the state Department of Managed Health Care must cover COVID-19 vaccines without requiring prior authorization, the agency said Friday. “If consumers access these services from a provider in their health plan’s network, they will not need to pay anything for these services,” the statement said.
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