Skip to main content

A wet night and more rains to come


It turned out to be a very nice day for planting at Winchester. We almost finished planting of two vineyards (a total of 1/2 Acre with Chardonnay and Merlot) which will be used for chemical trials and other management-related experiments. We had a drizzle in the early morning, but the expected thunderstorm did not arrive until 8pm or so and it was not as severe as I expected.

On 14th, night time relative humidity was high, but temperature was low (low 40's), thus it was not a disease night. But last night, we had a series of short rains and temperature stayed in low-60's with the relative humidity above 90% until now (8am, fog). This >12 hours of wetness accounts for Phomopsis, black rot, powdery mildew, and downy mildew infection events.

We are expecting to see more rains during this weekend, so, please think about potential disease events (in the future or in the past) when you decide for a fungicide application. You can find details of infection events I'm describing here in my notes from past vineyard meetings (you can find them in this blog, or in my AREC webpage).

The growth stage of Chardonnay in our vineyard was 15-20% with 7-8 leaves unfolded (but I did not see significant elongation of the cluster yet, thus between E-L 12 and 15), and that of Cabernet sauvignon was 8-90% with 5-6 leaves unfolded (~7-10-inch, E-L 12).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Season's Greetings!

I hope you and your family have a good holiday season and a Happy (and safe) New Year! Thanks again for your support of our programs. Here are some recent media highlights. 😉 The link will open a new window. AHS AREC promotional video  that highlights some of our activities. The link did not work... It asks you to log in to VT. I will request the IT people to change the setting, but in a meantime, here's the same video. We also appeared in  the Library of Congress project “Winery Workers of Virginia”. One more announcement: I will be moving this blog to a new location ( ext.grapepathology.org ) early next year. I had to make a change due to the email subscription service, which has been terminated.  You do not need to change your bookmark or your email subscription. The URL will be forwarded to a new site and your email subscription has been moved to a new site already. 

Up-coming meetings and Sentinel Vineyard Report #2

  I think many readers of this blog subscribe to Tony’s viticulture note, but just in case, here is some information that you may be interested in. The second Sentinel Vineyards Report is out now.  The report is attached at the end of this post.  Make sure to subscribe to Dr. Beth Chang’s Blog here:  https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/vtenology/home Two upcoming meetings: New Grower Workshop 4 November 2021 at Winchester VA Team taught sessions for new grape growers and those considering developing a wine grape vineyard in the Mid-Atlantic.  Registration is required ( and the deadline is this Friday! ). Please click the link below.   https://register.ext.vt.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=1600122 Virginia Wineries Association Annual Meeting November 15 & 16, 2021 Hybrid event: in-person (Richmond, VA) and remote virtual options The technical session theme on Day 2 is “Wine Stabilization – ...

Recent downy mildew risk events

 It seems that several rain events have happened over the course of the past two weeks or so. Here is a summary of recent downy mildew risk events, based on the NEWA stations and DMCast. Bristol, VA Fifteen days with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. The latest event happened last Sunday. Floyd, VA Eleven days with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. The last event happened last Friday. Charles City, VA Twelve days with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. The latest event happened yesterday. Central VA Since there was a wide variation among stations, I am listing several around Central VA. Tyro, VA Nine days with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. The latest event happened yesterday. Red Hill and Crozet, VA Only one day with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. Olympic Lake Thirteen days with potential DM infection event(s) since Sept 1. The latest event happened last Sunday. Washington, VA Eight days with potential DM infection e...