vineyards

Supervisors endorse changes to vineyard and orchard regulations to help ailing growers

Emma Murphy,PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is moving forward with changes to a key set of land-use regulations for vineyards and orchards in an effort to support the wine industry as it contends with a multiyear downturn.

The changes in question would revise the county’s 26-year-old Vineyard Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance (VESCO) to create an easier permitting pathway for vineyards and orchards to swap out crops, including winegrapes, so long as the cultivated footprint remains the same.

The board unanimously backed the proposal Tuesday, but the policy will return for a second, formal vote in September before it is implemented.

The change is part of a larger, board-driven push to bolster local farm producers with new or revised policies governing historically thorny issues, including regulation of farm and winery events, nuisance complaints, zoning designations, right-to-farm rules and land conservation.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/08/20/sonoma-county-vineyard-rules-crop-swaps/

Agriculture/Food System, , ,

Growers urge state to step up glassy-winged sharpshooter trapping and treatment

Natalie Hanson, PRESS DEMOCRAT

North Bay and state officials say a recent outbreak of an insect plaguing grapevines reveals a threat to not only California’s $73 billion wine industry, but also the state’s agricultural infrastructure.

Officials say the discovery of the glassy-winged sharpshooter in May serves as a bellwether of broad invasive threats to the state’s agriculture, with shrinking budgets to effectively prevent and manage outbreaks of other pests.

The insect spreads a bacterium responsible for Pierce’s disease, which kills plants like grapevines through thirst. The glassy-winged sharpshooter has the longest range and is most voracious among the species which can spread the bacterium.

Unchecked, its impacts could be significant for winegrowers, who statewide employ more than 422,000 workers. With limited state funding to support trapping and treatment programs, grape growers could lose tens of millions of dollars each year to declining production and vine replacement, agricultural officials and industry representatives say.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/09/04/growers-urge-state-to-step-up-glassy-winged-sharpshooter-trapping-and-treatment/

Agriculture/Food System, ,

Ag landowners ask for reconsideration of proposed Alexander Valley water district

Anna Armstrong, PRESS DEMOCRAT

As major changes hang over the shape of the region’s water supply, a group of agricultural landowners in northern Sonoma County is advancing the latest attempt to create a new water district for the area and secure a seat at the table in ongoing talks tied to that future.

The proposed district would give Alexander Valley stakeholders their own local agency to pursue water projects, weigh in on regional decisions and prepare for a future in which the Russian River could see less water — both from changes in climate and from any drawdown in supplemental flows from the Eel River.

The fate of the proposed water district could be decided as soon as October, when the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, is expected to again take up the proposal. The panel oversees jurisdictional boundaries for existing and new local government entities.

If commissioners reject it a second time, LAFCO Executive Officer Mark Bramfitt said, the applicants would have to wait a year before submitting another application, and any new proposal would have to be different from the one currently under consideration. Proponents also could challenge the agency’s decision in court.

The proposal comes at a pivotal moment for water users throughout the Russian River watershed.

A system of dams, diversion tunnels and an electric powerhouse, known as the Potter Valley Project, has diverted water from the Eel River into the upper Russian River for more than a century. Those diversions have supplemented dry-season supplies for irrigators and rural and urban residents from Mendocino County’s Potter Valley to Healdsburg.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/09/02/commission-reconsidering-proposed-water-district-geared-to-give-alexander-valley-stakeholders-greater-say-in-future-water-use/

Agriculture/Food System, Water, , , , , , ,

Climate change could redraw California wine country maps

Quinn Welsch, COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Researchers warn climate change could reduce wine production in California’s iconic wine regions, including Napa and Sonoma, while counties such as Mendocino and Monterey may become better suited for vineyards by the end of the century.

Napa and Sonoma counties have defined American wine since the 19th century, but the delicate environment that helped make those world-famous regions could be threatened.

According to researchers in a study published Tuesday in Frontiers in Climate, climate change impacts could reduce the suitability of grape cultivation and wine production in California’s historic wine country this century and redraw the Golden State’s wine map.

Although researchers found California’s most famous wine regions may struggle to maintain wine production, parts of Northern California and the California coast, particularly Mendocino and Monterey counties, could become new wine powerhouses.

Read more at https://www.courthousenews.com/climate-change-could-redraw-california-wine-country-maps/

Agriculture/Food System, Climate Change & Energy, ,

Sonoma, Napa counties struggling to ID infested grapevine plants sold at Costco

Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Lea el artículo en español aquí.

Three weeks after Costco warehouses across California discovered they’d received staked grapevines from a San Joaquin Valley nursery that had failed to note the plants were exposed to the glassy-winged sharpshooter — an insect with the potential to decimate local wine industries — agricultural officials in Napa and Sonoma counties have redoubled efforts to locate and dispose of the vines.

The Napa Costco, for example, had previously confirmed receiving 220 staked grapevines from Burchell Nursery based in Fowler in Fresno County between April 21 and May 21. Since the discovery of possible exposure to the glassy-winged sharpshooter, the Napa County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office had recovered 101 of those vines as of Tuesday, June 9.

“That’s pretty good, but it’s not enough,” Tracy Cleveland, the county’s agricultural commissioner, told The Press Democrat. “We’re looking for 100%.”

The numbers look better in Sonoma County, where ag staff has tracked down all but about 100 of the 634 plants Burchell shipped to Costco outlets in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park in that same timeframe.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/06/10/sonoma-napa-counties-struggling-to-id-infested-grapevine-plants-sold-at-costco/

Agriculture/Food System, , ,

Glassy-winged sharpshooter found on grapevine plants sold at Costco

Phil Barber and Edward Booth, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Agricultural operations across Northern California had to mobilize over the past week after discovering a Fresno nursery had shipped hundreds, if not thousands of staked grapevines to Costco warehouses without noting the plants originated from an area that has been infested by the glassy-winged sharpshooter, an insect with the potential to devastate vineyards.

On Tuesday, May 26, multiple counties — including Sonoma and Napa — acknowledged that agricultural inspectors had found sharpshooters “in multiple life stages” at Costco outlets in their jurisdictions.

Those life stages include egg masses, juvenile nymphs and fully developed adult insects, according to Sonoma County Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Pierpaolo Aymar, who is in charge of quarantine programs at the agency.

The glassy-winged sharpshooter is known to spread Pierce’s disease, which can be a death sentence for grapevines. Because of that danger, any nursery shipping vines from an area of infestation is supposed to put a hold requirement on those deliveries, so the receiving party can notify local agricultural authorities and schedule inspections.

That didn’t happen in this case, Aymar told The Press Democrat.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/05/26/glassy-winged-sharpshooter-detected-on-grapevine-plants-sold-at-napa-costco/

Agriculture/Food System, , ,

Updated VESCO BMP Manual and Technical Report Guidelines

Department of Agriculture/Weights & Measures, PERMIT SONOMA

The Best Management Practices and Technical Report Guidelines document (BMP manual) for those undertaking vineyard or orchard development or replanting under the Sonoma County Vineyard and Orchard Site Development Ordinance (VESCO), has been updated. Standards and requirements have not changed, but the new manual includes some updated language and outlines the Low Impact Vineyard Replanting and Permit Extension application processes.

For the first time, the manual itself has been translated into Spanish. Both the English and Spanish versions of the updated BMP manual can be viewed or downloaded here: Vineyard and Orchard Grading and Drainage

Growers planting new vineyards or orchards, or replanting existing vineyards or orchards, are to use the BMP manual as a guide to achieve the standards required by the VESCO Ordinance in Chapter 36 of the Sonoma County Code.

Agriculture/Food System, , , , ,
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