Skip to main content

Observations from the field

Some shoots of our vines are about to reach the second catch wire, but I saw many that were still about 10-12 inches too. It looks like series of rain during the month of April drove developments of black rot and Phomopsis. Although it was not severe, I found several vines with leaf lesions of black rot, and a few vines with Phomopsis.


Tan-colored lesions are symptoms of black rot. If you click the image, it will open a larger file where you can observe fruiting bodies (tiny black specks) within these lesions.


It is a bit difficult to see, but, please note the holes on the upper picture (in the blue circled area). The lower picture shows more characteristic leaf spots of Phomopsis cane and leaf spot.

For management tips, please refer to my around bloom disease management consideration post. Please remember that clusters will be susceptible to black rot from bloom to 4-5 weeks after bloom. Looks like Winchester area is expecting chances of rain on Friday, Monday, and then Wednesday. As I always mention, it is better and easier to provide protections to your vines before the rain than try to deal with diseases after infection.

Another notable symptom I observed is the one from leaf miner. It is a relatively minor pest of grape, but I often receive questions from growers probably because of its strange mining pattern on the leaf.

For more information, please refer to Dr. Doug Pfeiffer's page.

This is not symptoms, but I also found quite a bit of cicada exoskeletons. Looks like our area (Frederick county) is one of "hot spots" for 2017. Plus, there are reports from northern VA, MD, and DC about the unusual emergence of cicada. Once again, here is a link to Doug's page on the periodical cicada.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Downy mildew gallery

At Winchester, we had light rain events during the night of 6/12/09, but it was short events and the relative humidity was low (80% or so), thus it probably did not promote any infections. However, we are experiencing continuing favorable nights for downy mildew sporulation (average T>55F, high RH (80-100%)) for 10 days now. Yesterday, we conducted a formal disease assessment, and observed first incidence of powdery mildew for this season. We had plenty of infection events in last two months, so it was not surprising. At this point, it is a trace level of infection on untreated vines. Downy mildew was the major disease so far. We had up to 40% incidence on untreated vines. Next runner-up was black rot. It varies vine to vine, but some of vine had 10-15% incidence. Phomopsis was omnipresent as I expected from early May rain falls, but severity was low overall. We will examine diseases again in the near future, and I will update as the season goes. Here is downy mildew ga...

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. 

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...