The plan by the California Department of Food and Agriculture is to release mass quantities of infertile moths, interfering with the insects' ability to reproduce.
Environmental groups that had rallied against a proposal to aerial spray the Monterey and Santa Cruz coastal region this summer, praised the change.
"We at Earthjustice are glad that the CDFA has acknowledged that its plan to aerially spray Bay Area cities with pesticides to eradicate the apple moth was a terrible idea from the start - it wasn't safe, it wouldn't work, and it wasn't necessary," Managing Attorney Deborah Reames said in a statement.
"Sterile moths are a very good idea for long-term management of a pest like the light brown apple moth," added Pesticide Action Network North America in a website posting.
State Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura said officials started looking into alternative forms of pest control when the light brown apple moth was identified in California in March 2007, but had not anticipated that the so-called Sterile Insect Technique, or SIT, would be ready so quickly.
"SIT has been successful for more than 30 years in California and around the globe against a variety of insects - most famously the medfly," Kawamura said in a statement.
"Scientists had expected to need five to seven years to adapt SIT to the apple moth, but their work has progressed much more rapidly than expected," he said. "We now plan to begin limited releases of the sterile moths in 2009, with a full-scale program up and running in 2011."
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a letter of support to Kawamura, said that "creating the most sustainable tools to halt these pests is imperative. That will continue to be my direction in addressing all invasive pests that threaten California."
The light brown apple moth is a native of Australia, and is found also in New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Hawaii. Detection of the moth in California?s San Francisco Bay Area last year was the first on the mainland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Its name notwithstanding, the moth larva feeds on a wide variety of plants, including - most ominously for California agriculture - peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, grapes, cherries and citrus, as well as apples and pears. It can also damage landscape trees; among them, state signature species such as cypresses, redwoods and oaks.
The use of Sterile Insect Technology involves subjecting male insects to ionizing radiation, which renders them infertile while still enabling them to "function in the field," successfully mating with wild females, according to a report on the subject by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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