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Showing posts from June, 2018

Location for tomorrow's VVA Summer Meeting

A few people asked me about the specific location for tomorrow's VVA summer technical meeting. The meeting will be held at Brown Bear vineyards (Formally Spring Hills), and the nearest address is: 229 Spring House Lane, Woodstock VA 22664. Tremain prepared a set of screenshots to help you get there. (Click the images to expand) Spring House Lane is off from Alonzaville Rd. Your GPS may overshoot. When you see the vineyard in front of you, you should see the farm road on your right to get to the garage/barn. See you tomorrow!

Don't forget about powdery mildew!

Powdery mildew colonies at the center of two leaves in the picture With this wet season, what we think most are downy mildew, black rot, Phomopsis, and Botrytis. Powdery mildew is often associated with a dry season, partially because this pathogen does not require rain for its infection process. However, what they also like to do is grow on shaded leave because they are sensitive to the UV radiation. With very clouded canopy from strong growth triggered from heavy water input (= rain), there are lots of leaves shaded by other leaves. Well, at least that is true in my vineyards... Sure enough, when I took a look at these leaves, I found powdery mildew colonies.  You can see a small white fuzz (= powdery mildew colony) on two leaves in the picture above. Note that how the leaves are shaded. We have a fair number of options for powdery mildew management. Sulfur (FRAC = M2) is an economical option, and there are range of products with different modes of action (= F...