Their feeding method, along with their voracious appetite for so many different hosts, makes glassy-winged sharpshooters an effective vector for the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium.
Vitis tiliifolia may have some resistance to Pierce's disease (PD) which afflicts many commercial grape species; it has exhibited atypical symptoms despite harboring high populations of the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa, which causes PD.