Mark Hoffman (North Carolina State) conducted a webinar on muscadine disease management yesterday. It included extension personnel and producers. If you are interested in a review of muscadine diseases and their management, please go to the link below. I cover all the major diseases of muscadine in my talk, and…
Read More
We collected our first grape root borer adults today in one of our pheromone traps in Lumpkin County, Georgia. This means that the adults have started to emerge from the soil out of their pupal stage. For the next few weeks the adults will emerge, mate, and the females will…
Read More
I just wanted to alert everyone that spotted wing drosophila (SWD) management timing is approaching soon. The SWD flies are active nearly year round in these parts, but near veraison as the brix levels in wine grapes reach approximately 15 degrees Brix, the grapes become attractive (and thus susceptible) to…
Read More
We will soon be observing symptoms of Pierce’s disease in susceptible grape varieties — Vitis vinifera and some hybrids such as Chambourcin. Unfortunately, winter temperatures have now been mild for several years, so we are seeing an uptick in Pierce’s disease at higher and higher elevations in Georgia and throughout…
Read More
Disease identification in wine grapes can be confusing, even for the “experts,” so it is good to continually reinforce your knowledge of diseases and their symptoms (spots or discoloration on a leaf for example) and signs (actual pathogen fruiting structures and other tissues you can see with the naked eye…
Read More
If you listen to podcasts, you might be interested in listening to the podcast found in the link below. This is from a new University of Arkansas podcast site that is sponsored by the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium, the same group that funds much of the training of county…
Read More
We are within a few weeks of the anticipated initial emergence of grape root borer (GRB) adults in North Georgia. If you are planning on implementing mating disruption as a management tactic for GRB and you haven’t deployed your pheromone dispensers/ties, now is the time to get those distributed. If…
Read More
Many of the fungicides utilized for Botrytis management are no longer efficacious due to resistance development in this fungus. Now is a great time to collect Botrytis samples for fungicide-resistance testing. While the funds last, Botrytis resistance testing is free for wine grape producers in most of the Southeast (Alabama,…
Read More
Today, I observed downy mildew for the first time this year. It was on Lenoir vines in west Georgia, and this indicates that producers should be scouting for it throughout the state. In addition, if you have not already done so, I would consider incorporating highly efficacious materials such as…
Read More
Powdery mildew is just starting to show up on untreated plants in the research vineyard at Blairsville, GA. The photograph below was taken today, but infections likely started occurring some time ago. I hope you will not see it yet in well managed vineyards, but recent rains and other difficulties…
Read More