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  • Dear Grape Community,   Hurricane Florence predicted path shifted southwards. The storm is predicted to move along I 95 towards South Carolina and then inland. The Coastal Planes will be affected in the next 24 hours by high winds and heavy rain falls. The Moutains can expect heavy rain falls Saturday to Tuesday next week.…

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  • https://grapes.ces.ncsu.edu/2018/09/hurricane-florence-warning/   Please click the link for updates (9/11/2018) on hurricane Florence. Feel free to contact me any time, Thanks, Mark

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  • Pierce’s disease (PD), caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, is quite prevalent in many locations this year.  The cold winter this last year has not made up for the two previous warm winters, so the bacterium has survived and prospered over the last 2-3 years. Unfortunately, once vines are infected and symptomatic, the vines need…

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  • As the brix levels in the grapes continue to rise, the attractiveness of the fruit to spotted wing drosophila (SWD) also increases. We are currently only catching a few SWD in our monitoring traps, but this is expected to drastically increase in the next few weeks. And since SWD is associated with sour rot and…

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  • Some of you already tried sending Botrytis samples to Clemson for fungicide resistance testing — only to find out that the service was no longer offered. However, Dr. Guido Schnabel will be conducting studies with the PROFILE system in early September, so he is volunteering to take Botrytis samples at this time — all free.…

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  • We are still detecting grape root borer adults in north Georgia. This means that the adults are still active, with females potentially still laying eggs. While we are getting a little late for chemical control, if you have more than 35 days before harvest, you can use Lorsban 4E* (chlorpyrifos).This is currently the only insecticide registered…

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  • We are starting to see diseases pop up on both European vinifera and hybrid grapes.  For some of these, such as anthracnose and Phomopsis, much of the initial infection occurred much earlier.  The goal now would be to prevent secondary spread — especially to developing clusters.  Relative downy mildew, Sarah Campbell (UGA grad student) reported…

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  • Sarah Campbell, a graduate student in the Plant Pathology Department at the University of Georgia, has been reviewing our situation with downy mildew resistance to three fungicide classes utilized in Georgia.  The maps in the document below show the counties which she has surveyed and whether resistance has been found in those counties. Of critical…

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  • We are within a few weeks of the anticipated initial emergence of grape root borer (GRB) adults here in 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 you are unfamiliar with grape…

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  • Downy mildew was confirmed today in west Georgia (see below for photos from the producer). This is the first confirmed report this year, but as I said yesterday, it is likely out there in other locations as well. We will likely see more symptoms of downy mildew this week as the epidemic takes off. If…

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