Another vineyard bird/varmit puzzle

[David Engel]

I have a new one for ya'll. We have a Flame grape vine that is several years old and has covered a cattle panel trellis we have. There is a nice brick walkway under it. About 3 days ago, I started seeing grape parts and skins on the bricks walkway underneith the trellis. Washed them off with the hose... same the next day. This morning there are 13+ perfectly skinned grapes... no damage to the grape berry and NO skins anywhere. Ever seen or heard of this vineyard phenomenon? The top is covered with a net also.

 

[David Engel]

Here is a picture from this morning... AFTER we put up a net below the vines on the trellis. I harvested this morning. My guess is we lost 60 or so grapes in the past 3 days to this phenomenon.

 

[David Violante]

This is quite interesting… and a quick ‘great google machine’ search yielded quite a bit, but nothing about what eats just skins.

Are you spraying? If so with what and what concentration? Is it grapes here and there or specific clusters?

 

[ChuckD]

Is it a slip-skin type grape? Perhaps the berries are splitting and the inside pops right out?

 

[meridaen]

That’s bizarre, never even heard of that before.

 

[David Engel]

No spraying. These are supposed to be Flame grapes.