Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services Division
The division is comprised of four components:
Responsible for keeping exotic plant pests out of the State and stopping or minimizing the spread of newly-arrived pests or diseases.
Each year, California’s agricultural border stations intercept thousands of unwanted pests from cars, trucks and buses entering the state.
Plant quarantines are enforced within the state by investigators, inspectors, and biologists, who seek out unauthorized agricultural commodities.
A program for nursery, cotton and seed ensures the highest quality planting materials and fiber.
Pest
Detection/Emergency Projects
Responsible for quickly detecting and eradicating serious exotic pests that may enter the state.
In peak season, monitors over 100,000 exotic insect traps placed in high risk sites throughout the state.
Early detection has led to over 60 eradication programs against Medfly, gypsy moth, Japanese beetle and other devastating pests.
The tools for eradicating pests are constantly evolving; each year the state makes a large investment in research for the best available technologies.
Directs seven pest control and eradication programs and one pest control research program.
Efforts to combat the pink bollworm, cotton boll weevil, and curly top virus, are directed by this program.
Responsible for protecting rangeland, waterways, crops and urban areas through the weed and vertebrate pest programs.
California’s largest biological control program is managed from this branch.
A team of scientists evaluate, rear, and release beneficial insects to provide long-term management of serious pest problems.
More than 35 scientists and support staff identify plant diseases, weeds, and insect pests from 70,000 samples submitted annually by CDFA pest prevention programs, county agricultural agencies, universities, and the public.
This state-of-the-art diagnostic facility houses the California State Collection of Arthropods, a large collection (+ 1.5 million) of insects from around the world.
Experts from this team also assist California’s agricultural export market by determining whether certain agricultural products can be certified as free of serious pests and diseases.