NARRATOR: A vineyard might seem like a serene place.

[insect vibrating, calling] But on its leaves and stems, these insects are hitting a frenzied dating scene.

When it's time for these blue-green sharpshooters to look for a mate, they shake their abdomens and send vibrations traveling through the vines.

While they have big eyes, they're not great for spotting acuity.

The vibrations are key to finding that special someone.

This male is looking for the female he's been chatting up.

[vibrating call] "You up?

Oh, hey."

Maybe, maybe not.

All sharpshooters, like this glassy winged one, feed constantly.

They pierce plants with their stylet, sucking out the watery sap.

To get the nutrients they need, sharpshooters drink up to 300 times their body weight in sap each day.

They shoot out the excess liquid known as insect honey dew.

If you were sitting nearby, you might feel a refreshing mist.

The problem is that while they gorge themselves, sharpshooters unintentionally inject a bacterium into the vine that eventually kills the plant.

Protecting California's grape vines from this infection costs more than $100 million a year.

So entomologist Rodrigo Krugner and his team at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working on a solution.

He uses lasers to pick up the insects vibrations and turn them into sounds we can hear.

This male glassy winged sharpshooter puts himself out there.

This polka-dotted female is into him, but they can't quite get into the right position.

He tries his luck with another female, but she gives him the leg lift.

That's sharpshooter for "no thanks."

She's actually deferring to the other female.

[female croaking] Krugner found that the female that calls the longest and the strongest becomes dominant and makes the other females quiet down.

She mates first.

The others have to wait.

So Krugner got an idea.

He recorded and played back the call of a dominant female.

[vibrating call] [vibrating call] Using an electromagnetic shaker hanging on a trellis, he broadcast her vibrations in the vineyard and got the sharpshooters to stop mating.

This is just a prototype.

Its ultimate goal is to mess with the insects' game.

But for now, sharpshooters are still hooking up.

[music playing]