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Disease risks from today's rain

Winchester area received drizzle during early morning today.  It started around 3 AM and the RH was high until 9:30 AM or so.  It was 6.5 hours of an estimated wetness with an average temperature of 64F.  It was long and warm enough for Phomopsis, black rot, and downy mildew infection risks.

Since we received a series of rain after nights with high relative humidity, thus some of you might experiencing development of downy mildew.  Most of us are probably at the tail end of the critical time for berry infection (4-5 weeks since bloom).  If you see the beginning of downy mildew development, my recommendation is a use of phosphorous acid material such as Prophyt or Agri-Fos.  It has some kick-back activity (please note that it won't kill actively growing colonies, it works when you apply a period between infection and establishment ~ up to 3-5 days after infection), and a relatively low risk for fungicide resistant development.  If you are still outside of 66-day PHI, you can mix it with mancozeb product to add extra protection (for both infection and fungicide resistance).

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Disease risks from yesterday's rain

Winchester area received precipitations from thunderstorms yesterday.  It started around 3:30PM and lasted until 7:00PM.  The actual amount of precipitation was not high (0.05 in) compared with other northern VA regions where a severe thunderstorm warning was issued, but since the ending part of the thunderstorm hit during the evening, the relative humidity was high (>90%) until 2 AM or so.  Thus, it accounted for 11.5 hours of wetness with the average temperature of 73F.  It was warm and long enough for Phomopsis, black rot, and downy mildew. We are still having chances of rain (40-60%) until Monday.

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EPA is reviewing captan

Captan, which we use extensively to manage downy mildew, Phomopsis, ripe rot, and other grape diseases, is currently under review by the EPA. In order to keep captan as one of our tools to control grape diseases,  please respond to the EPA's registration review page to post your comment  (will open the EPA page). With increasing cases of fungicide resistance with newer products in our region, it is very important for the majority of commercial grape growers located east of the Rockies to keep older multi-site materials such as captan to be used as a backbone of the spray program.  Also, please forward the message to other producers and stakeholders who should respond to the need for this fungicide in our industry.