Bug threatens California wine and fruit industry

From CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre

March 28, 2000
Web posted at: 4:34 p.m. EST (2134 GMT)

SONOMA COUNTY (CNN) -- California's $33 billion wine industry is under fire. Taking aim is a small bug called the glassy winged sharpshooter, which not only eats the vines, but spreads a plant disease that could seriously damage California's wine and fruit industry.

"The potential of this bug is that it could kill every grapevine and some 70-plus other fruit bearing trees and vines in the state," said Sam Sebastiani of Viansa Vineyards.

Last year the sharpshooter wiped out 40,000 acres in Southern California. Now it's heading north, right into the wine industry's economic heart.

"Parts of the industry will be hard hit, that's a certainty," said professor Alex Purcell of the University of California Berkeley.

The sharpshooter also thrives on other California favorites like citrus, almonds, and avocados.

The bug attacks two ways. It eats the plant and then injects a bacteria that chokes off the plant's water and nutrients.

"They go right to the trunk of the vine to feed and when they do that they infect, and it's a mainline shot to the roots and it kills the vine," said Sebastiani.

The sharpshooters consume as much as a thousand times their weight daily in fluid, according to Purcell.

State and federal agencies are pouring more than $28 million into research to ease the symptoms of the bug's bacterial infection and slow its voracious appetite.

Tiny yellow sticky traps dot the countryside. With no chance of stopping the insect's spread, these traps really only serve as sentinels to signal when the bugs do arrive.

"They tend to be in the trees and bushes near water, which is where we are and it's pretty hard to change that," Sebastiani said.

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Glassy-winged sharpshooter/Pierce's Disease
University of California: Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter
College of Natural Resources, UC Berkeley
Viansa Winery

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