Our eight years old chardonnay is about 50% bud break as of yesterday, and I am sure that growers in the south have seen buds and shoots already with the early season cultivars. Although the chance of precipitation seems to be low for a while, it may be a good idea to review Phomopsis management, just in case. It looks like rain events that happened in the past few days accounted for Phomopsis disease risk events according to the NEWA.
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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