Scientists, state aggressively pursue Pierce's disease

he threat of Pierce’s disease, a fatal bacterial disease of @apes and other crops spread by insects called sharpshooters, is on the rise in California. The disease has been in the state at least since the 1880s, when it destroyed 40,000 acres of grapes in the Los Angeles basin. While outbreaks have occurred.in vineyards along the coast and in the San Joaquin Valley periodically over the last century, the disease was limited by the fact that native sharpshooters don’t fly far from their preferred native habitats.