Here’s a snapshot from the last week, showing the number of days with the risk of each disease: Ph = Phomopsis, PW = Powdery mildew, BR = Black rot, and DM = Downy mildew. (Note: Floyd station is out of order since early July. We are working with Rainwise to fix it.)

The image above is just a summary of the past 7 days. Please visit https://newa.cornell.edu/ to obtain more detailed information. You can check daily weather data as well as disease and insect pest model results including forecasted risks. We paid the annual fee so that growers in Virginia can freely access NEWA. Please take advantage of the resources. This information was made available through Wine Board-funded the Sentinel Vineyard project. We obtained NEWA weather stations that have been installed throughout the state.

While it was not as wet as the last week, more than a few days with downy mildew risks were observed at many weather stations in the past 7 days. If you are in an area where the number of days with downy mildew has been high, in the last several weeks, please consider protecting your vines with downy mildew material(s).

Having said that, the spray decision needs to be based not only on the weather condition but on the cultivar and history of the disease(s) in your vineyard. For example, if your vineyards have been clean and vines are protected from the previous application of fungicides, there is no need to make “rescue” sprays.

On the other hand, if you know you have seen a concerning level of downy mildew in the past, your spray was more than 10 days ago, and if you saw more than 2 inches of rain, it is probably a good idea to mix a phosphonate (i.e., a “phos acid”, such as Prophyt or Phostrol) for downy mildew.

At this point, our focus will be on powdery and downy mildew until veraison when we need to protect clusters from late-season rots. You can find specific materials information in this post (mid-season disease management), this post (VVA presentation), or this one (bloom time reminders).