Virginia Grape Disease Updates

Recent cooler weather seems to have slowed down vine development, but it looks like vines in the south are about to bloom. Bloom is a start of the critical time for cluster infections by downy mildew, powdery mildew, black rot, Botrytis, and ripe rot, because pathogens of these diseases can infect flower parts and develop symptoms later. What I recommend often is the use of protective materials to protect tissues for 4-6 weeks for V. vinifera varieties, and 3-4 weeks for V. labrusca varieties, which should translate into 3-4 sprays for V. vinifera , and 2-3 sprays for V. labrusca .  If you have hybrids, they are somewhere in between, so, 4-5 weeks to be protected.  As usual, please make sure to rotate mode of action (= FRAC) groups. Since we have not seen many rain events, I think powdery mildew will be the primary target for many of us. But please check your local weather to make sure, some downy mildew susceptible cultivars may still show downy mildew, especially, if there...

Hurricane Delta seems to impact our regions, starting Saturday (10/10), and rain may last until Tuesday (10/13) or so . Depends on your location and cultivar selection, you may have some grapes that may need more time before harvest. ( A link to Hurricane Delta tracker from Weather.com - will play a video. ) The target diseases right now are late-season fruit rots (Botrytis, ripe rot, bitter rot, etc.) and downy mildew (on leaves). The links here are  the presentation slides from the last viticulture meeting that covers some of the diseases mentioned above  and   a list of short PHI materials for Botrytis, powdery mildew, and downy mildew , which may help you decide what to do. If you decided to wait until the storm is over, there are several materials with a very short PHI that you may want to consider, such as Oso/Ph-D or Elevate for Botrytis and a phosphorous acid (Prohyt, Phostol, etc.) or Lifeguard for downy mildew. FYI: when we tested in the field, Oso plus Double N...

Looks like a tropical storm Marco is moving westward, but Laura may hit our areas during this weekend. The current forecast shows (opens a new window with a link to Weather.com) potential movement to Virginia and surrounding states around this Saturday (8/29). Many white cultivars will be either ready to pick or getting very close to harvest, and red cultivars may have several weeks to go, depends on where you are what you grow. At this point in the season, the target diseases are late-season fruit rots (Botrytis, ripe rot, bitter rot, etc.) and downy mildew (on leaves). For whites, it may be a decision of when to pick, but not what to spray. If you decided to wait until the storm is over, there are several materials with a very short PHI that you may want to consider, such as Oso/Ph-D or Elevate for Botrytis and a phos acid for downy mildew. FYI: when we tested in the field, Oso plus Double Nickel combination worked well against sour rot. For reds, it will depend on when and what you ...

With recent rain events and warm and humid nights, the risk of downy mildew and Botrytis are probably high in many areas of Virginia. For example, I counted seven days (at Winchester, VA) and eleven days (at Rustburg and Scottsville, VA), with downy mildew infection events in the past two weeks according to the NEWA model ( http://newa.cornell.edu/ ). It is very important to keep your vines protected, and if you think you need to have a kick-back activity against downy mildew to counteract the recent rain event that your previous spray might not have provided good coverage, add a phosphorous acid material such as Prophyt or Phostrol.  Please refer to this list of materials with short PHI since some of the cultivars are getting very close to harvest. Note: although both sulfur and copper have a short PHI, we typically do not recommend spraying these materials within 3-4 weeks of harvest due to its potential negative impacts on the fermentation or wine quality.  When some ...

Thanks for attending today's online Extension meeting. Please find the materials I discussed today below. 1) Presentation slides (will open a new window with a pdf file). 2) List of short PHI materials for Botrytis, powdery mildew, and downy mildew.

Our Chardonnay clusters are getting larger and berries are starting to touch each other. It feels a bit early, but here are grape disease management reminders at berry touch/cluster closure stage. Botrytis gray mold: The best management practice is canopy management. Botrytis pathogen likes high humidity, thus, the poorly managed canopy that traps humidity will help them to thrive. This pathogen also needs wounds to develop spores, thus, grape berry moth and other insects plus birds need to be managed too. There is a number of Botrytis materials such as Rovral and Meteor (FRAC 2), Elevate (FRAC 17), Vanguard and Scala (FRAC 9), Luna Experience (FRAC 7 plus 3), Kenja (FRAC 7), Miravis Prime (FRAC 7 plus 12), Switch (FRAC 9 plus 12), etc. Botrytis pathogen is well known for its ability to develop fungicide resistance, so, please rotate FRAC codes!! QoI fungicides (FRAC 11) are no longer the effective material for us due to the development of QoI-resistant Botrytis isolates thro...

This is the second part of "at bloom" fungal disease management tips. P lease refer to yesterday's post as well. The spray timings for Botrytis is at bloom, bunch closure, and veraison.  The pathogen has a wide host range and seems to be active throughout the season, but blooming time is considered as a critical timing because the pathogen can infect flowers without showing symptoms. Please keep in your mind that Botrytis is very well known for its capacity to overcome fungicides.  Thus, a rotation of mode of action groups is a very important aspect of Botrytis management. Mode of action for a particular fungicide can be found as a FRAC code, which you should be able to locate on the label.  Here’s a short list of materials for Botrytis and their FRAC code in parenthesis: Elevate (17), Scala (9), Vangard (9), Switch (9+12), Inspire Super (9+3), Luna Experience (7+3)*, Kenja (7)*, Meteor/Rovral (2), Endura* (7), Pristine* (7+11), Miravis Prime (7+12)*. The materia...

I received several emails and phone calls concerning spray before the upcoming hurricane Florence. Hopefully, we will have a window of opportunity to apply materials. Looks like we have a break from rain starting tomorrow for maybe 1.5 to 2 days. Here is the list of materials with low PHI (same as the one I posted last month). Just FYI: here are previous posts about... Late season downy management Botrytis gray mold management Once you have about 1.5-2 hours for the materials to dry after application, that will be sufficient for them to stick to the leaf and cluster surface. Good luck!!

At Winchester, the night time relative humidity has been still very high, close to 100%, in nearly every nights in the past three weeks. In addition, we have been observing rapid development of thunderstorms, pretty much every day in the past few days. I know I sound like a broken record, but these conditions favor downy mildew development because downy mildew pathogen prefers to produce spores under dark, humid conditions. Then spores will be spread via rain. At this point, you do not need to worry about downy mildew infection on clusters; however, they can still infect leaves. Often time, you will initially see infection on the top of the canopy because younger leaves are more susceptible than older ones. Losing the top leaves and laterals are not a big deal; however, once the infection gets severe, it can defoliate many leaves rather quickly (as in the picture above), and that can affect maturing process. Knowing how wet this year has been, it is probably wise to be proactive ...

Most of us are about to finish the critical time when clusters are susceptible to infection by downy mildew, powdery mildew, and black rot.   This critical time varies by varieties, but in general, 4 to 6 weeks and 3-4 weeks from bloom for V. vinifera and V. labrusca species, respectively.   After this critical period, you should be able to relax a bit because these pathogens no longer able to cause disease on berries. So, what’s next?   As usual, disease dynamics really depends on environmental conditions, cultivars grown, and cultural practice, but in general, this is the moment when you will be thinking about late-season diseases such as Botrytis, ripe rot, bitter rot, and sour rot.   The spray timings for Botrytis is at bloom, bunch closure, and veraison.   The pathogen seems to be active throughout the season. The main reason we recommend the application of a Botrytis specific material at bunch closure is that this most likely to be the last...

In a typical year, the fourth of July weekend is the time the critical period for cluster infection by downy mildew, powdery mildew, and black rot will end for many of us because it will be about 5-6 weeks after bloom. (Bloom this year was about 1-2 weeks ahead of typical years, so, this week maybe it for 2017.)  This critical time varies by varieties, but in general, 4 to 6 weeks and 3 to 4 weeks from bloom for V. vinifera and V. labrusca species, respectively.  After this critical period, you should be able to relax a bit because these pathogens are no longer able to cause disease on berries. Plus, powdery mildew tends to slow down because it is not very active under hot condition (> 90F). So, what’s next?  As usual, disease dynamics depends on environmental conditions, cultivars, and cultural practices you employ, but in general, this is the moment when you will be thinking about late season diseases such as Botrytis, ripe rot...

It has been pretty wet week so far. At Winchester, we observed about 11 hours of wetness on the 26th with an average temperature of 64F, 50+ hours (and counting) from the 28th to today with an average temperature of 61F. It is certainly long and warm enough for Botrytis infection. Whether we require a fungicide application for Botrytis or not at this point depends on several potential factors. The first one, of course, is whether you had a previous application or not. If you had a previous application to cover these rain events, you probably do not need to be concerned much. The second one is a time to harvest. If you still have several weeks to go, you may want to consider an application, but if you will harvest within a few days, I am not sure an application of fungicide will help you much since we do not have any curative materials for Botrytis. Whatever we spray at this point will be good against future infections, but not the infection happened already. The third is cultivar...

Most of us are about to finish critical time when clusters are susceptible to infection by downy mildew, powdery mildew, and black rot.   This critical time varies by varieties, but in general, 4 to 6 weeks and 3-4 weeks from bloom for V. vinifera and V. labrusca species, respectively.   After this critical period, you should be able to relax a bit because these pathogens no longer able to cause disease on berries. So, what’s next?   As usual, disease dynamics really depends on environmental conditions, cultivars grown, and cultural practice you employ, but in general, this is the moment when you will be thinking about late season diseases such as Botrytis, ripe rot, bitter rot, and sour rot.   The spray timings for Botrytis is at bloom, bunch closure, and veraison.   The pathogen seems to be active throughout the season. The main reason we recommend application of a Botrytis specific material at bunch closure is that this mos...

Some of our early cultivars such as Alandale is changing it color.  It is just a matter of time to see other cultivar to enter phase of veraison.  Hopefully, we will keep seeing dry weather with little bit of rain here and there.... There are several diseases to be considered at this stage.  One of them is Botrytis.  The spray timing for Botrytis is at bloom, bunch closure, and veraison.  The pathogen seems to be active throughout the season, but Botrytis likes berries when they get mature and accumulate more sugar.   As usual, canopy management is the first line of defense against grape disease management and this is particularly true for Botrytis since it tends to develop after a long period (15-17 hours) of high humidity condition. Please keep in your mind that Botrytis is very well known for its capability to overcome fungicides.  Thus, a rotation of mode of action groups is very important aspect for Botrytis management.  The ...

Most of us are about to see the end of critical time for berry infection by black rot, powdery mildew, and downy mildew.  Please keep up as much as you can with protection of vines for next few weeks.  I know many of us experienced some degree of flower and berry infection by either black rot or downy mildew due to frequent rain events, but once we pass the critical period (4-5 weeks after bloom for most of cultivars, and maybe 5-6 weeks for some susceptible varieties), these pathogen cannot cause disease on mature berries. The next critical spray is for Botrytis at bunch closure and veraison.  Make sure to remember about rotation of mode of actio n groups as well as tank mixing.  Since many of Botrytis specific materials are prone to have fungicide resistance issue, it is better to mix with a broad spectrum material such as captan or copper.  (Mancozeb can be used too, but we are approaching to the 66-day PHI.)  Another important IPM component for Botr...

It finally stopped raining, but we (Winchester area) are having an on-going wet event since 10/9/13.  I counted >108 hours of wetness with an average temperature of 54F (ranging from 48F to 60F).  It has been a long enough for Botrytis, and although the temperature was bit low, downy mildew probably had some chances as well. Here is a list of things to be considered: 1) Time to harvest (if you are picking in a few days, I do not see the benefit of spraying now) 2) Current Botrytis situation in your vineyards 3) Variety (red with loose cluster ~ lower Botrytis risk) 4) Canopy management (Open fruiting zone is always helpful!) 5) Birds/insect damages (more damages, higher the Botrytis risk) 6) Fungicide effect on wine quality As I mentioned earlier this week, we had Botrytis risk event on last Monday; however, it had been dry for several weeks until that rain.  Thus, the Monday's risk might not have resulted in many infections.  On the other hand, Botryti...

I received comments from Anton on the previous post about Botrytis.  He is more concerned about Rovral (=Meteor), Vangard, and Scala than I indicated. I wasn't very clear on the previous post about how the information has been developed.  There are two components in this story.  One is the probability of having Botrytis with resistance to some of the Botrytis materials.  So far, it seems that probability is very high for Flint (or other QoIs), high for Endura and Pristine, moderate for Rovral (=Meteor), and unknown for Vangard and Scala.  The other component is the level of resistance.  It is high for Flint, moderate to high for Endura, and Pristine, moderate for Vangard and Scala, and low for Rovral.  The key point that Anton helped me understand today is that even though the resistance level against Rovral is "low", it still means that the labeled rate won't be as effective as it should be.  Thus, if there is a certain percentage of Botrytis...

There are still a chance of an afternoon rain, but here are estimated disease risks from rains from yesterday to this morning.  We had about 16 hours of an estimated leaf wetness period with an average temperature of 63F.  It was infection events for Phomopsis, black rot, and downy mildew.  I think most of us are getting close to or at bloom.  Please remember that a period between bloom to 4-5 weeks after bloom is a critical time for fruit infection by powdery mildew, downy mildew, and black rot.  Also, at bloom, we recommend protection spray against Botrytis because it can infect flower parts and either resides in it or stay with flower debris until later in the season. Many of you probably remember a report from Dr. Anton Baudoin about fungicide resistance of Botrytis pathogen, Botrytis cinerea .  This pathogen can infect wide variety of hosts and it is known to develop resistance to a fungicide or multiple fungicides relatively quickly.  Thus, A...

Boy, it has been a rainy month of September! If you are subscribing to Mark Chien's "Wine Grape Information from Penn State", you probably seen this, but here's a link to NOAA on the precipitation record from Irene and Lee .  It gives you an idea of how we started this month with a lot of moisture in the air.  As you can imagine, this type of weather will increase risks of having late season rots.  I have heard some people had an outbreak of Botrytis, sour rot, ripe rot, etc.  The pictures above are examples of Botrytis bunch rot.  The management strategies for these rots are discussed in the previous post .  Since temperature during these rain events were low and we have not have many days with sunlight, you may want to keep your clusters hanging little longer.   Please keep remind yourself about the PHI when you decide to apply fungicides. One of the strategies for sour rot and Botrytis management discussed was the management of birds....