Center rallies to save vineyard stock after virus hits By Edgar Sanchez
For more than 70 years, a little-known complex in Davis—Foundation Plant Services—has supplied healthy plant material in high demand for grape grow- ers and vineyards that sustain California’s nearly $45 billion retail wine economy. The self-supporting center in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis, dis- tributes virus-tested grape, fruit and nut- tree propagation stock in cooperation with federal and state agricultural agencies. Now FPS is mobilizing against a vine- yard virus: grapevine red blotch disease, a severe vineyard threat identified in California’s North Coast, Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley grape-growing regions, as well as in seven other states since 2012. The virus is forcing FPS itself to stop growing in one of its two open-field vine- yards in Davis. “It is a threat for us, and we are taking action to protect our valuable collection,” said Maher Al Rwahnih, director of FPS and a plant pathologist. Some vineyard stock is being moved to temporary greenhouses on the Davis cam- pus. Those facilities will be replaced by a permanent $5.25 million, 14,400-square- foot, insect-proof greenhouse that is being built to protect grapevines from red blotch and other disease threats. Funded with urgent contributions from
After grapevine red blotch disease rav- aged a Foundation Plant Services vine- yard in Davis, funds were raised for a $5.25 million bug- proof greenhouse.
agricultural research and advisory groups, the facility is due to be completed by late 2023, with a second greenhouse planned within the next two years. “We are being proactive,” Al Rwahnih said. The aggressive steps being taken in Davis to safeguard vineyard propagation materials underscore concerns about red blotch in California, America’s leading wine-producing state. Named for the un- sightly red blotches it leaves on vineyard
leaves, the virus slows the ripening of red and white grapes, impeding sugar accu- mulation and flavor compounds coveted by the wine industry. Once red blotch strikes, “You need to hang your grapes longer to get the sugar content you need,” said Anita Oberholster, a Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology. The virus can also render that sweetness
moot by devastating vineyards, because the only known treatment is to remove entire vines. As FPS rallies to contain the threat in Davis and safeguard vineyard propaga- tion materials, Oberholster and other researchers from UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Oregon State University are inves- tigating red blotch and trying to identify
See BLOTCH, Page 5
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4 Ag Alert August 24, 2022
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