A scraggly grapevine collected in 1906 and stored at the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium has yielded clues to when Pierce's disease arrived in California and how the bacterium that causes it has evolved since then. Scientists hope to use that information to prevent and, eventually, treat the deadly blight, which has spread to wine-growing regions around the world.
Botanist Daniel Potter is the new chair of the Department of Plant Sciences, overseeing graduate and undergraduate programming, 60 faculty members, several emeriti professors and many greenhouses, labs and teaching facilities.
