Skip to main content

Thank you for your attendance.

I appreciate those of you who showed up at the meeting. I'll try to visit the meeting in the other regions as much as possible. [I do have a research to do, so, I cannot go to every single one of them, though. ;)]

It looks like we will have good weather during next few days, and I think most of you are thinking about pre-bloom or at-bloom applications right now. (Those of you in the Southern VA may be thinking about 1st application after bloom.) Temperature is getting higher (although we had 3-4 days of cool nights), and many of common disease organisms are more active around 60-75F. At pre-bloom, you need to think about Phomopsis, powdery mildew, black rot, and downy mildew control, and for at-bloom or the first application after bloom, you need to add something for Botrytis control. Pre-bloom to 2-3 sprays post-bloom are very critical sprays for disease control in VA growing area.

Rachis and flower part can be infected by these fungi and results in direct problems, and also, in some cases, such as powdery mildew infection on rachis and small berries, it could cause problem later in the season by creating wounds for other microorganisms to come in to cause sour- or bitter-rots. Botrytis infection on flowers may also come back as rots later.

If you have an application due soon, make sure to adjust your spray volume based on the canopy development, and remember that you should not apply sulfur if temperature is85F or above.

Last two nights were cold (lower 40's) around Winchester. It was not suitable for downy mildew sporulation event. I hope you did not experience any frost injury. Growth stage was about the same as the last time for our Chardonnay and Cabernet sauvignon.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2021 Pest Management Guides for grapes (UPDATED 24 March 2021)

Updated: Links below are for the 2021 edition of Pest Management Guides. The first one is for home gardens, and the second is for commercial productions. I asked them to provide by chapter (= crop) and they made changes. :) 1) Visit the page by clicking one of the links below. (It is rather a slow page. Please be patient.) 2) Scroll down until you see "Links to individual chapters." Grapes are chapter 3 for both Home (Home Fruits) and Commercial Crops (Grapes) 3) Once you get to the site, click "PDF", then "Preview", and it will open a new window.  4) Scroll down a bit, and click "Download Version" to download the file to your computer.  2021 Home Grounds  Pest   Management   Guide 2021 Horticulture and Forest  Pest   Management   Guide

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. 

New non-bearing grape guide and a list of fungicides for the home garden grapes.

  Please find a link below to download a new disease management guide for non-bearing grapes. As with the other VCE guides, you need to click on the “Preview” icon, which will open a new window, then click on the “Download” icon to obtain a pdf copy. https://resources.ext.vt.edu/contentdetail?contentid=3226&quantity=1&productprice=0&contentname=Fungicide%20Spray%20Guidelines%20for%20Non-bearing%20Vineyards Also, I updated a list of fungicides that you can obtain from home garden centers. I saw several new products, but unfortunately, many of them do not list grapes on their label, so, the list is identical to the old version. If you know of other products that can be used for home gardens, please let me know. Home-garden-fungicides-2021 Download