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2024-12-28T01:32:00.0000000Z
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What a century-old grapevine reveals about a disease that plagues wine country

UC Berkeley News

UC Berkeley researchers used bacterial DNA from a 120-year-old herbarium specimen to reconstruct the history of Pierce’s disease in California.

By Kara Manke

A century-old grapevine cutting is providing new clues into the history of a deadly plant pathogen that is decimating crops across the globe.

First reported in Anaheim, California in the 1880s, Pierce’s disease of the grapevine has since been found in much of California, as well as in other parts of the U.S. and, more recently, Europe. Triggered by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, the disease clogs the tiny tubes called xylem that transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Starved of nourishment, the vine’s grapes shrivel, its leaves turn brown and drop, and eventually the plant dies. A recent study estimates that the disease costs California growers and taxpayers more than $100 million a year in lost revenue and prevention efforts.

In a new study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the French agricultural research organization CIRAD identified a 120-year old grapevine cutting in the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity that still contained traces of X. fastidiosa DNA from the early 1900s.

Read on: https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/12/16/what-a-century-old-grapevine-reveals-about-a-disease-that-plagues-wine-country/

Xylella_fastidiosa
Grapevine

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