Word: pd
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...will eventually have to be replanted because of infestation by minute root lice called phylloxera. Now many of those same vineyards, as well as others in Lake and Mendocino counties, are battling even more dangerous pests: tiny insects called "sharpshooters," which spread a bacterium that causes Pierce's disease (PD...
Phylloxera can be stymied by regrafting grape buds onto resistant varieties of rootstock. No such defense is available against PD. The sharpshooter aphids attack the moisture-carrying vessels of vines and can kill them off in a year. Particularly vulnerable are vineyards near lakes and rivers, where the bug lives, since spraying with pesticides is banned because of the danger to fish and water. In case of a sharpshooter onslaught, says viticulturist Jim Wolpert of the University of California at Davis, a grower's only recourse is to "yank the vines and start over...
Considering all the woes they face, why do winemakers persist? Well, there is something magical in helping turn the juice of lowly grapes into a beverage that is like none other on earth. And having survived a mountain of troubles, veteran vintners can look upon something like PD as just one more hazard of the business. "What the hell," says Jack Cakebread of Napa's prizewinning Cakebread Cellars. "Agriculture has always been that way. But it's a bummer. I just planted 350 prune trees that host the wasps that prey on the sharpshooter." He pauses to sip from...