Virginia Grape Disease Updates

Our reds broke buds, and whites have about 1-inch shoot growth on it today, and more rains in the weather forecast. It is time to think about Phomopsis! What happen from this point to pre-bloom is a relatively simple spray program to manage Phomopsis, downy mildew, and powdery mildew. During the early part of the season, I typically recommend a mix of mancozeb and sulfur or copper by itself. The reason why I recommend mancozeb now is because it works on so many different diseases (including Phomopsis which is the main target for us), plus, mancozeb has a 66-day PHI and a limit on the amount of mancozeb to be used in a year (e.g., 24 lb (or 18 lb of a.i) if you Dithane DF). Thus, I would like to use mancozeb-based product early in the season. I have been often asked whether you should include sulfur or not. If your vineyard has a history of powdery mildew outbreak, it would be a good idea to have a sulfur in your tank mix, even at early part of the season. Although you may not abl...

It looks like the 2017 season for us has officially begun. Our 8 years old Chardonnay at Virginia Tech's Winchester AREC was about 10% bud break as of yesterday. Despite a warm winter, a colder spring might have kept things slow (I am not complaining!) Once again, the important disease at this point is Phomopsis cane and leaf spot. Please refer to my previous post about Phomopsis management. Also for our Chardonnay plot, we have a chronic issue with climbing cutworms. Since we know the location of our vineyard where we always see some damages, we typically apply an insecticide to the panels of vines that is facing a wooded area. Without spraying the whole vineyard, it seems to provide adequate control. Good luck with the 2017 season. I will post key disease management tips as the season moves along.

Our Chardonnay and some of the hybrid vines are in bud swell stage as of this week, and others are tagging along.  It looks like we will see bud break very soon with warmer temperature coming up next week. One of the diseases you need to consider this time of the year is   Phomopsis cane and leaf spot .  It causes minor leaf spots, which is more obvious to our eyes, but the more important damage is caused by necrotic lesions on shoots and rachis. It also causes berry rot; however, it is not common with wine grapes because of our spray programs. Materials for black rot and downy mildew are often effective against Phomopsis. Thus, the fungicide coverage for these diseases is also working as management of Phomopsis, especially later in the spring and early summer. Some cultivars, such as Viognier and Seyval Blanc, are more susceptible to Phomopsis than the others. Phomopsis takes a while to establish in the vineyard. It may take 5-6 years for Phomopsis to b...

It was very nice to see you all at the Weekend Warrior Grape IPM workshop. I think we had a very good time with lots of discussions. Hopefully to see you at other meetings. Here is a list of materials that we covered during the meeting. Prioritization in vineyards (Tremain Hatch) VCE overview (Mark Sutphin) Grape weed management (Tremain Hatch on behalf of Dr. Jeff Derr) Interactive grape disease management (Mizuho Nita) Fungicide application template (will open a Google Drive spreadsheet, in order to save, click "file" and select "download as..." Please remember that this one is just an example. You need to come up with your own!) Please note that there is another version, under "Resources" on the right-hand side of this blog. It is in a different format, but essentially the same type of tool. Template used in the exercise (pdf) List of chemical with FRAC codes  (pdf)

The meeting tomorrow is called "Weekend warrior workshop". This is our first attempt to target growers who have very limited time to manage their vineyard. What we originally imagined as the target audience was someone who has another job during the week and can only spend time during the weekends, but it can be applicable for someone who has several operations.  We will discuss time management and prioritization of tasks, and develop a template for disease weed, and insect management. It will be held at Winchester AREC (595 Laurel Grove Rd., Winchester, VA) on 4/1 (Sat), starting 10 AM and probably goes on until 2 or 3 PM. If you are interested in,  please RSVP using this link , or just show up. Our station is a bit far from restaurants, so, you do need to bring your own lunch.

We are looking for an agricultural technician position in my lab, which is located in Winchester, VA. The main duty is assisting various vineyard and experimental operations in our vineyards and other field plots, such as canopy management, weed management, and treatment applications. It is a part-time position, but the position will be held year around. During the winter months, duties will be mostly inside, assisting vine propagations, pruning, etc. We are looking for someone who enjoys working in vineyards and with good communication skills. The other requirements are: valid driver license, basic computer (Word, Excel, etc.) skills, and willingness to learn new things. If you know someone who is interested in, please let them know to apply for this position through the link below. The posting will close on 4/1. https://listings.jobs.vt.edu/postings/74676

Thank you all for coming to our IPM workshop today. Here are my slides from today (it will open a new window for Google Drive). As I mentioned at the workshop, this exercise is to help you developing a backbone of your program. You need to adjust it for your vineyard(s). Our next meeting is called "Weekend warrior workshop". This is our first attempt to target growers who have very limited time to manage their vineyard. What we originally imagined as the target audience was someone who has another job during the week and can only spend time during the weekends, but it can be applicable for someone who has several operations. We will discuss time management and prioritization of tasks, and develop a template for disease and insect management. It will be held at Winchester AREC on 4/1 (Sat), starting 10 AM. If you are interested in, please RSVP using this link.