Determining Harvest Priorities It is critical to properly monitor and assess the fruit maturity and characteristics to make the appropriate management, harvest, and winemaking decisions to produce the best quality grapes and wine possible. Previous Timely Viticultures on Crop Development Sampling and Evaluating Samples described how to take a proper sample that best represents the actual ripene...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Double A Vineyards offers a full line of crop protection products available to our customers. There are several grape diseases that can cause crop loss directly, through infection of fruit, or indirectly, through loss of leaf area. Various insects feed on grape flowers, fruit, leaves, and roots, resulting in decreased productivity. Weeds can c...

Marketing Specialist, Danielle Huber It’s a constant battle in the wine industry to please the consumer. We’re always trying to evolve the pallet, improve the vessel, and advance the process. As consumers, we want to pay less and get more. That’s why we have boxed wine! We want convenience. Hence, wine bottles with screw tops, stemless glassware, and the popular new cans of wine that can be tak...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Managing disease is a key component to successful grape production. Cultural practices and variety selection can have a large impact on disease pressure and susceptibility, but most grape growers rely, to some extent, on chemical fungicide applications in order to produce disease-free fruit and foliage for the production of high quality fruit ...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Part I provided an introduction to the major diseases that affect grapes and some options for early season disease control in vineyards. Please refer to that article for links to fact sheets for five major grape diseases – anthracnose, Phomopsis, black rot, downy mildew, and powdery mildew. This article will focus on disease management conside...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Most grape growers recognize the need to determine the nutritional status of their soil prior to planting, but it is also important to monitor the nutritional status of the vineyard on a regular basis once it is bearing fruit. Ideally, soil and petiole testing are used together to monitor the nutritional status of the vineyard in order to anti...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Over the years (25 and counting!), Double A Vineyards has built a large clientele with varied interests that range from commercial vineyard and winery owners to the backyard hobbyist. This article is aimed at the latter, especially our customers who decide they want to grow grapes or grapevines in their backyard, but who may or may not know wh...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc.  When trouble-shooting the cause of poor growth in vineyards (especially newly-planted ones) competition from weeds is one of the first things to consider. In my experience, new growers often underestimate the competitive effects of weeds in the vineyard. This article will summarize some of the concepts of managing weeds and cover crops as wel...

Rick Dunst, Viticulturist, Double A Vineyards, Inc. Chemical pest management options for growers with only a few vines are limited. While non-restricted use pesticides can be purchased and used by anyone (meaning, anyone who reads and understands the pesticide label prior to application and applies it legally), they usually come in package sizes intended for commercial growers with at least sev...