Sweet discovery for the wine enterprise — Science InfoJune 29, 1974
Pierce’s sickness stays a difficulty for California grape growers.… [Pathologists] have acknowledged the explanation for the sickness. They’d been ready to isolate a small, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterium which is likely to be a model new species and as a result of this reality as however unnamed.
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Pierce’s sickness nonetheless vexes California vineyards and is estimated to worth the state higher than $100 million per yr. Nevertheless researchers now know additional regarding the offender: Xylella fastidiosa.
The bacterium spreads amongst grapevines by means of bugs, significantly sharpshooter leafhoppers and spittlebugs. When the bugs suck sap from an contaminated plant, they select up the microbe, which harmlessly multiplies of their mouths. Leafhoppers and spittlebugs then transmit the pathogen to vines after they latch onto a healthful plant. The subsequent an an infection prevents water and nutritional vitamins from flowing into the plant, finally killing it.
There’s nonetheless no treatment for Pierce’s sickness. Perhaps in some unspecified time in the future it’ll be attainable to genetically engineer domesticated grapevines to be proof against the micro organism.