Most of VA started a week with a rainy Monday.  At Winchester, the first estimated wetness period started 5 AM Monday morning, lasted until 3 PM (10 hours) with an average temperature of 64F.  The second one started from 6 PM and lasted until today around noon (18 hours) with an average temperature of 64F.  Both were risk events for Phomopsis, black rot, downy mildew, and Botrytis.

Some of you may remember that I was concerning about lack of diseases in our experimental vineyards at the VVA summer technical meeting ;).  Sure enough, I start to noticing a rapid development of powdery mildew on some of border vines, and downy mildew is on its way too!  It reminds me how quickly these pathogens can spread.

Some of early varieties are at bunch closure.  If you have a variety that is susceptible to Botrytis, this would be a good spray timing to deliver a material into the cluster.