How did a tiny aphid nearly destroy Europe's vineyards?
When French growers began to lose their vines, some buried a live toad under each one. The cure turned out to be American roots.
βΆ Start the storyA tiny, sap-sucking insect from North America, grape , did it. It was carried across the Atlantic in the late 1850s, and the Great French Wine it caused in the mid-19th century destroyed many of France's vineyards. Over 40% of French vines and vineyards were devastated in about 15 years, many businesses were lost, and wages in the wine industry were cut to less than half.
40%+
Part of the horror was that nobody could see the culprit. The first documented attack in France was at Pujaut in Languedoc in 1863, where growers noticed a mysterious but not the aphids. The insect attacks the roots and then moves on, so a dug-up vine shows no insects. Eventually a local grower, Felix Sahut, noticed that the roots of dying vines were infested with lice sucking sap.
Knowing the cause did not give the cure. Growers tried chemicals, toads under each vine and free-roaming poultry, and none of it worked.
The solution came from the source of the problem. Planchon found the cause and Riley confirmed it, and then Laliman and Bazille proposed European vines onto resistant American . American vine roots exude a sticky sap that clogs the mouth of the young insect when it tries to feed. Many growers disliked the idea, but most had no other option, and the method proved an effective remedy.
The Texan Thomas Volney Munson provided rootstocks, and in 1888 the French government sent a delegation to Denison, Texas, to honour him.
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Recap
European grape vines survive because they are grafted onto American rootstock that resists the aphid.
π‘ A trick to remember it Β· A French vine above, an American root below: the top gives the taste, the bottom gives the shield.
Surprising fact Β· A dug-up dying vine shows no insect because the pest pulls out its feeding tube and moves on.
Sources (2)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (19 claims) cites at least one of these.