Skip to main content

Another reminder on downy mildew

It looks like many of us received some rain in the past few days, and we may see another rain toward the end of this week.

Here are recent downy mildew infection risks based on the NEWA's DMCast.

Floyd, VA (note: the temperature sensor has been fixed recently, and that's why it shows records from mid-June.)


Crozet, VA (note: the precipitation sensor has been fixed recently! We really appreciate the willingness and commitment of the personal weather station owners!)


Winchester, VA

Protective materials for downy mildew are Ziram (FRAC M3), Captan (FRAC M4), Fixed copper (FRAC M1), Revus or Forum (FRAC 40), or Zampro (FRAC 40 + 45), or Ranman (FRAC 21)).

  • There are increasing cases of Revus resistant downy mildew isolates in VA. Plus, resistance to Ranman is known among downy mildew pathogens of other crops. Make sure to spray before the rain and rotate the FRAC codes!
Materials with kick-back activities are Phosphorous acids (Prophyt, Phostrol, etc, FRAC P07), and Ridomil products (FRAC 4, make sure to check the PHI since Gold MZ has a 66-day PHI). If you think your previous application was washed off before the recent rain events, it is probably a good idea to add a Phos acid to your tank mix. 
  • It is a good idea to tank-mix a phosphorous acid and a protective material, especially your cultivar(s) is sensitive to downy mildew.
  • Please do not mix a phosphorous acid product with copper. Our results show a high probability of causing phytotoxicity.
That's it for today. I wish you all a happy July 4th!!

[note: Since Google dropped the blog subscription system, I have been working on alternatives. If you were a subscriber, you may receive an email from ext.grapepathology.org address.]






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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. 

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

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 event