Biosecurity Australia, Australia’s quarantine watchdog, has come up with the goods by banning imports of Californian table grapes due to the potential hazard of Pierce’s disease and its troublesome insect vector, the glassy-winged sharpshooter. Pierce’s disease is the major danger facing the Californian wine industry at this moment, since there is no known cure and it’s already found in vineyards adjacent to waterways in the Napa Valley. All hell could break loose there if the glassy-winged sharpshooter arrives on the scene, the very reason the Californian wine industry is presently petitioning the US Federal Government to convert the $15.3 million allocated last year as emergency funding to become an annual grant. The way things are looking, it could take decades to solve this major problem.
