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Now it's raining...

It looks like we will have a rainy week. Since Saturday, we had three nights with average temperature above 65F with the relative humidity in 80% or more at Winchester. These warm humid nights are favored by downy mildew sporulation from infected leaves. And these series rain events will help them to infect leaves, rachis, and berries. Thus, it is possible that downy mildew had a chance to produce spores during these nights, and these spores are ready for infecting grape tissues. Therefore, for the next round of application, you may want to think about adding a fungicide for downy mildew with curative activity such as Ridomil products.

But once again, the risk of diseaes development depends on the history of your vineyard and other environmental conditions such as variety, traning system, etc. If downy mildew has not been a problem in the past, the risk may be less.

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Downy mildew gallery

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