Santa Clara County agricultural officials are conducting an aggressive door-to-door campaign to locate approximately 1,300 grapevine and desert willow plants sold at Costco locations that may be infested with the glassy-winged sharpshooter, an insect known to spread Pierce’s disease.
The effort targets customers who purchased these plants between April and early July 2026. Officials are urging residents to check their yards for these plants and report any to the County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office for inspection and removal.
Ericka Mora, Santa Clara County deputy agricultural commissioner, stated that the initiative began in South County, a significant grape and wine-producing area, to protect local growers. Pierce’s disease is a bacterial infection that obstructs water flow in grapevines, leading to dehydration and death. The glassy-winged sharpshooter acts as a vector, rapidly transmitting the disease.
This pest poses a significant threat to California's multibillion-dollar agriculture sector, particularly its wine-producing regions like Napa, where it has caused substantial damage. The disease it spreads has no known cure. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has supported this alert, enabling Costco to recover about 200 plants so far.
Officials are working to physically uproot and safely destroy any infected plants before the pest can spread further, aiming to mitigate potential damage to the state's agricultural industry, which is already facing challenges from bureaucracy and water issues.