Winchester area received a light rain (0.02 inches) during early hours today. It started around 1AM and even though the rain stopped soon, the relative humidity was above 90% until 9AM. Thus, it accounted for 8 hours of estimated wetness with the average temperature of 62F. It was a moderate risk for Phomopsis, a borderline risk for black rot, and a risk for downy mildew.
At Winchester, we had light rain events during the night of 6/12/09, but it was short events and the relative humidity was low (80% or so), thus it probably did not promote any infections. However, we are experiencing continuing favorable nights for downy mildew sporulation (average T>55F, high RH (80-100%)) for 10 days now. Yesterday, we conducted a formal disease assessment, and observed first incidence of powdery mildew for this season. We had plenty of infection events in last two months, so it was not surprising. At this point, it is a trace level of infection on untreated vines. Downy mildew was the major disease so far. We had up to 40% incidence on untreated vines. Next runner-up was black rot. It varies vine to vine, but some of vine had 10-15% incidence. Phomopsis was omnipresent as I expected from early May rain falls, but severity was low overall. We will examine diseases again in the near future, and I will update as the season goes. Here is downy mildew ga...
Comments
Post a Comment
Please leave your comment here. In order to avoid spam messages, l moderate comments, thus it may take a few hours for your comment to be posted on the page.