UC Davis professor Andrew Walker, a grape breeder, focused primarily on breeding disease-resistant rootstocks in the past. But in his recent work, with the help of funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Walker used wild American grape varieties--all of which are resistant to Pierce’s disease in varying degrees--to breed a group of eight new vines (four red, four white), with high resistance to Pierce’s disease. [...] Walker stressed that the new vines are not so-called ”genetically modified,” but are vines bred by painstakingly hand-pollinating one vine variety with pollen from another. Although both Chardonnay and Syrah were used in the breeding of the new vines, there is no resistant Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah. But it’s a step in the right direction.