Recent content by vtoddw

I can confirm you are right about that, at least for whatever this fungus is I'm seeing on my merlot. I'm fairly certain it's black rot. I'm gonna start spraying with Captan and cross my fingers this can be turned around.

This is the first year I'm trying it. All prior seasons I only sprayed wettable sulfur which hasn't prevented some yet to be identified fungus that showed up around August last year. Additionally, I've had a dense infestation of leaf hoppers the last two seasons, which aren't that destructive...

Well shoot now I feel foolish. Just went to the garage to look at the label and realized I have Captan, not Mancozeb. So my experience I described earlier was for buying Captan, and, what I've read being highly toxic is Captan as well. I recall seeing Mancozeb when looking for phomopsis...

Sorry to hijack this thread for my own purposes...but I was wondering, what kind of PPE do you use when you spray this stuff? I am currently using neem oil and have a bottle of mancozeb unopened because it appears to be highly toxic per what I've read.

I can see why you'd think that, when I attempted to buy it on Amazon I received a warning stating it cannot be shipped to CA. Curiously, I was able to buy it at the local Home Depot in Murrieta, CA. No clue why the discrepancy...

I know it's a chunk of change, but in order to take the guess work out of free S02 it would be a good idea to invest in a Vinmetrica SC-300. I dropped $500 on one many years ago and I'm able to get exact readings on my sulphites which allows me to then make precise additions rather than...

That is pretty much my experience as well, they're just so annoying when I remove the nets and do other maintenance this time of year it seemed like a good idea to do something about them, but it sounds like the consensus here is I should just let em live. I suppose that's the right path to...

Thanks for this, hopefully I can carve out some time tomorrow to watch it.

It does appear they're really more of a nuisance pest than a destructive one, so I suppose I could continue to live and let live. Fortunately, no Japanese beetles here "yet", just Western Grape Leaf Skeletonizers and Horned worms for the most part, although I've maintained organic control with...

Hey all. Every year my vines start out nice and pristine all the way up to about August when veraison is well under way. Then the leaf hoppers descend upon it, tiny little bugs that jump all over my face when I get close to work on the vines and turn healthy clean leaves into speckled damaged...

It's a very conflicting feeling ripping off all those clusters early in the season, questioning "do I really need to do this? what if I leave them all, maybe they'll ripen and I'll get a huge crop?" One approach I've seen online and practiced is to drop clusters that are still solid green a...

Yeah that's looking pretty close in appearance. The varietal I'm having issues with is zinfandel, my merlot is totally fine. Thanks for the tip, I'll look into Eutypa.

Ha! Yeah sorry, it wasn't my intention to hijack your thread, I was trying to point out that your leaves look similar to mine so I was suggesting that "if" this is red blotch in both cases it may explain why my zin didn't ripen and neither are your grapes. It's possible in your case it's a...

Yup, I'm not totally sure if its red blotch either but it's pretty clear these particular vines will never get better and are just taking up space / time / nutrients at this point so they gotta go. I bought all 6 from Armstrong nursery in Temecula the same season, so its likely that they are...

Here in Murrieta, CA I cut my losses a few weeks ago after the 3rd consecutive week it dumped rain on my vines since the day tropical storm hillary dropped 2.5 inches in 24 hours. My Merlot came in at 24 brix and Cab at 22, but my Zinfandel was covered in scattered green berries. Rather than...