The acreage of juice grapes in Washington continues to decline, but the price is likely to go up next year, said Trent Ball at the Washington State Grape Society annual meeting on Friday. Challenging growing seasons in Argentina, Spain, and California mean global supplies are down.
“The message I keep hearing is that things are looking up. I know I said that last year, but this year things are really looking up,” said Ball, the agriculture program chair at Yakima Valley College who complies stats on the state of the grape industry every year. “I love to deliver good news.”
The good news was followed by some bad news from Washington State University viticulture extension specialist Michelle Moyer, who has been tracking the role that fungicide resistance could have played in this year’s mildew problems for wine grape growers.
She collected 260 mildew samples from different vineyards across the state during the season and found that 95 percent showed resistance to strobulin fungicides, also known as the Frac 11 fungicide group.
“That’s not good at all,” she said. Vineyards with neighbouring cherry and apple orchards appear to be particularly at risk, because drift from fungicides sprayed in those orchards can add to the selection pressure pushing the mildew to develop resistance.
If a vineyard with mildew shows resistance, she recommended taking an off year from Frac 11 fungicide use if possible, or using it early in the season when mildew populations are smaller.
Source: goodfruit.com
