Category: Grape IPM
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Veraison: late season vineyard management
Grapes are at or near veraison in Vermont vineyards, which signals the start of fruit ripening. This is an important time of year for a few activities. First, bird damage can be expected to begin and increase as fruit ripen. Birds will harvest your berries just a day or two before you’re ready to, so…
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Vermont Grape IPM: Disease on the horizon
The main management items that should be on the minds of growers right now are disease management, groundcover management, disease management, and maybe some insect management. Canopy management probably needs to wait a little bit. We have been seeing some symptoms of Phomopsis, a little black rot, and some downy mildew in the vineyards we…
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Immediate prebloom in grapes
Grape bloom is looming in many Vermont vineyards, and this is a critical time for disease and vine management. As we mention in our initial IPM strategy for winegrapes, all of the major diseases save for late-season fruit rots are sensitive to management right now. That means that fungicide applications should be made, using a…
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Early season disease management in Vermont vineyards
With the heat this week things moved fast, vines at the UVM vineyard hover around 1-2 inches of growth and those at my house at 1440 feet in elevation are at bud burst. It’s time to really be thinking about protecting vines from early season disease infections. Most cold-climate cultivars will not need disease protection…
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VT Grape IPM: Buds swelling, flea beetles, lime sulfur, weed management
With spring here, I recorded and posted a quick video in the UVM vineyard today, which you can see here: 4/28/2026 Vineyard walk. -TB Buds are swelling in Vermont vineyards. At the UVM Horticulture Research and Education Center in South Burlington, yesterday, bud stages sorted into two general categories. Most ‘Minnesota’ cultivars (Marquette, Brianna, Itasca,…
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“vineyard nutrition” EVEF webinar – March 3
Passing on this webinar to anyone interested. These are great webinars that many may find useful. -TB Link: https://extension.psu.edu/advancements-in-grapevine-nutrition Description: Advancements in Grapevine Nutrition This session brings together four members of the USDA/SCRI Hi-Res Vineyard Nutrition Project to share concise research updates and practical deliverables that support balanced grapevine nutrition in commercial vineyards. Presenters will…
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Veraison in Vermont vineyards: birds, petiole testing, disease, harvest planning
Grapes are at or near veraison in Vermont vineyards, which signals the start of fruit ripening. This is an important time of year for a few activities. First, bird damage can be expected to begin and increase as fruit ripen. Birds will harvest your berries just a day or two before you’re ready to, so…
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Vermont Grape IPM: Immediate Prebloom disease management
Passing this on from Bethany again. -TB Hi there again folks, I’m writing in to you on the eve of the most important disease prevention period of our grape systems! Over the past two weeks we have had several Phomopsis and black rot infection events according to our NEWA models. As we enter pre-bloom it…
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Vermont Grape IPM: Bud burst and early season disease management
This edition of our newsletter was written by UVM PhD student Bethany Pelletier. You can expect more from her this season. While I have you, I’d like to promote the Cold Climate Viticulture course Bethany and I will be teaching at UVM this summer. We haven’t finalized this year’s syllabus, but you can see the…
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Starting the 2025 growing season
My longtime colleague and predecessor in this Extension role, Lorraine Berkett, always used to stress that “the growing season starts April 1”. By that she didn’t mean that we should be firing up sprayers by April Fools’ Day— although in one year I did make my first copper application to the orchard on March 30—…