First Paragraph: In the early part of the 1990s, a new pest came on the scene in southern California. Before agricultural growers were aware of it, this pest spread into the grape growing areas of Riverside County where it devastated the vineyards in Temecula. The pest, identified as the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter (GWSS), was found to spread Pierce’s Disease, a disease for which there is currently no cure. The pest continues to invade other nearby counties and soon began to appear in limited numbers in counties in Central California. The pest was thought to be spreading primarily through “hitch-hiking” on trucks loaded with plants being shipped to counties outside the southern California area.
