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Post by Admin on Sept 13, 2013 14:35:01 GMT
Jeff, If we could accomplish the same reduced pressure with Surround instead of nuking every four days, I will choose the Surround, providing the winemaking is not adversely affected. I hope some official studies will ensue so our anecdotal observations can be validated. Our vineyard dog nabbed one of the raccoons which helped a lot, but I think he missed another... have to get a couple coon dogs in there next year I think!
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Post by davemrv on Sept 14, 2013 2:49:54 GMT
I agree spraying with clay is better than pesticides every couple of days and a lot less soil compaction. I have noticed that in my block of GDC that the rows that got leaf pulled last and therefore dried off faster everyday have a lot less SWD damage. I wonder if anyone noticed that the less time moisture is on the fruit the less damage. I wonder if Dr. Pfeiffer thinks maybe the SWD need moisture to enter the berries. This might also add the why the surround works. Just throwing things out.
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Post by Jeff Sanders on Sept 24, 2013 20:14:41 GMT
Yes, would prefer something with less environmental impact like Surround. I've done ad hoc research on two potential negative aspects of Surround: here's a summary of what I have found, but would love to hear others' views as well:
If you spray surround on the grapes early (say a bit past veraison) you will slow ripening in the grapes, perhaps sufficiently (at least in some red varietals) that you will be unable lose your green flavors by the time we run out of ripening days. If you are doing it for fruit flies, confine your spray to the fruit zone as most believed the slowed ripening occurs from both grapes being covered and leaves being covered. The later you spray surround the less impact it will have on the ripening.
Conversely, the later and more often you spray the surround, the more clay that will end up in your must. I've found winemakers at the poles on this: it completely destroys the flavor of wine or it has no effect. I find few taking a middle ground.
In some forums on Surround, they claim it is only truly effective against larva from pests (not necessarily SWD) if you spray 3 times, at about 25 lb per acre. That seems like a lotta clay...
Would love to see some studies on ripening and vinification.. it would seem there have to have been some done out there, but I am not finding them..
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Post by Admin on Sept 26, 2013 2:10:53 GMT
Thanks, Jeff. Fortunately, it appears there is no need to spray until well after veraison for SWD so the first issue is not a concern. We sprayed Surround one time ten days before harvest, only in the fruit zone, and it appeared to be very effective in discouraging the SWD to lay their eggs in the berries. We have fermented the Pinot Noir and it is now going through its extended maceration, presumably with a layer of Surround at the bottom of the T-bin. I am curious to see what the bottom looks like when we empty it. So far the taste of the must is full-bodied, nicely structured, fruit-forward, well-balanced, has a long finish and seems like it will be an excellent wine. The color does not appear to be affected by the clay. So for us at this point in the wine-making process, we are very pleased. We'll see as time goes on. I am hoping several other vineyards will spray at least a test panel this year that would produce at least a barrel of wine so we can gauge the effects of Surround. If we don't test all the options this year, we will be in the same situation next year.
A discussion came up about what to do with the pomace and whether using it as a bait was helpful or detrimental. We covered one large mound of pomace with a dark tarp and upon lifting it several days later, not a single SWD or any fruit flies were evident. The heat was just too much for them, so this might be a good way to handle pomace if you do not want it to serve as a breeding ground for more SWD. Or maybe let it attract them, then cover it up and cook the little buggers:)
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Post by benmargulies on Sept 30, 2013 17:37:02 GMT
I wanted to share my experience with SWD this year. I noticed them in traps in mid july, but not in the vineyard until the earliest variety (Pinotage) hit about 20 brix. SWD in the vineyard was correlated to bird damage (a large flock of crows). Were the SWD attracted to crow damaged fruit? Were crows attracted to SWD damaged fruit? I don't know.
I left two outside rows of Pinotage (an SWD dream grape- early, red, tight clusters) for the crows to nibble on. Although SWD pressure hasn't been zero in my other varieties (Merlot, PV, Chambourcin plus whites), it has been lower.
I've noticed very little SWD activity the past few weeks (sprayed delegate 9/15), in part because of the spray, but I'd hypothesize that nighttime lows in the high 40s slow them down.
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Post by benmargulies on Sept 30, 2013 17:47:37 GMT
Re: Surround and Winemaking
Chemically, Kaolin poses similar issues as bentonite. The clay particles can adsorb amino-acids necessary for yeast nutrition. In the case of white wines, I'd think it would be worth getting YAN tested after the surround and other solids settled out, before innoculation.
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Post by Nathan on Oct 2, 2013 11:49:08 GMT
We had one clone of Pinot that was treated with one application of surround a couple weeks before it was harvested. The fermentation did seem to lag a little longer than the other fermentations, but once it got going, I did not notice any significant differences. Standard dose of yeast nutrient kept the yeast happy.
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Post by Admin on Aug 17, 2014 15:18:52 GMT
And here we are.. facing our SWD Challenge 2014! Hopefully each new year of dealing with SWD will help us gain insight as to what is working and what is not. We noticed them coming into the vineyard at a lower brix this year, but perhaps because the season is later and the host plants surrounding us were on a normal schedule. They came into our vineyard en masse on Aug 5. We have been rotating Delegate, Malathion, Belay and one spray of Mustang Maxx so far. We had one area that was being hit hard no matter what we did. In searching the perimeter of the vineyard we found a pokeweed patch in that area which was supplying a constant influx of new flies. We have destroyed the patch and sprayed the area. Since then we have noticed a drastically reduced number of new flies. So the moral of the story is to search your surrounds for host plants, destroy, remove and spray.
We have sprayed Surround on about 1/4 of the vineyard. One unexpected benefit... after four days of rain last week we noticed there was less splitting of those berries compared to non-Surround covered fruit. We ended up reducing our non-insecticide area to 2 rows because we were getting too much rotting fruit. Unfortunately the Surround fruit was near the pokeweed source. We re-applicated Surround after the rains. They they had the one insecticide spray on them after that. We will see how they do after the residual effect expires, the new coat, and with the pokeweed patch gone. We hope to not have to spray it again.
How are you doing? What have been your observations this year?
Christine.. Ankida Ridge Vineayrds
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Post by Stephen/Annefield on Aug 18, 2014 17:26:25 GMT
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SWD Forum
Aug 18, 2014 21:19:04 GMT
via mobile
Post by khambsch on Aug 18, 2014 21:19:04 GMT
Been spraying Surround on red wine varieties since 16° Brix. Currently at 22° waiting for acid to drop. Have unsprayed row as a control.
At harvest, what lab analyses can I run on the juice to, 1) quantify (albeit indirectly) the SWD infestation in each, and 2) measure Surround's impact on the juice?
Any ideas?
"It worked for me" isn't good enough. I want numbers.
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2014 14:50:12 GMT
Karl... Here is Matthieu Finot's experience last year in the cellar after using kaolin....
"After using last year, the good thing with surround and kaolin is i didn't experience any problem with the wines.
Kaolin is less negatively charged than bentonite so there is almost no combination with antocyanin unlike the bentonite.
Also kaolin unlike bentonite will not create any colloidal structure.
the only point that i will still need to experiment is the pH.
kaolin pH is around 8.5 so it is slightly basic and it could potentially raised the pH of the wine/ juice.... but because of the amount being used i really don't picture a big change of pH if any."
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2014 14:54:49 GMT
Stephen/Annefield.... I did read however, that adding sugar to the insecticides increases the incidence of botrytis.. so something to think about. We have not added sugar in the past so cannot personally comment on that. Thanks for the post, Stephen. Hope you can remain SWD free!
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Post by swiss winemaker on Sept 23, 2014 20:25:03 GMT
Hello people,
I found this blog researching for hints of more swd-experienced people than we are here in europe north of the alps. This year, swd is striking us for the first time seriously. No one knows what to do, everybody guesses and does treatments he believes in. Harvest in our region (north eastern switzerland) is going to start slowly these days with Muller-Thurgau and early red varieties. Withe grapes don't seem to be very much offended by swd, early red ones have some losses. It was a very mild winter 2013/14 and a wet wet chilly july/august, swd seems to have liked that a lot. Now everybody is very nervous about our main red variety Pinot Noir that is about to come to more than 19brix these days. Some of us sprayed insecticides, I did a treatment of surround last wed. First time that I painted blue grapes white... but it looks as if infected berries are easily visible in the white, and it seems there was not a frightening increase of infection in the past 5 days though ripening conditions are superb these days. For the next couple of nights temperature is said to be pretty low (37 -41degrees fahrenheit), so we are courious if this keeps swd from dating&mating. I will follow this blog...
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Post by Admin on Oct 6, 2014 9:34:04 GMT
Hello, Swiss colleague,
How did your harvest go? The SWD seems to be spreading around the world. We are hearing reports from Germany and Bordeaux that they are now having problems with SWD as well. I think a worldwide symposium will be needed to combat this pest. Our weather leading up to harvest here in VA has been one of our best in recent history. We grow Pinot Noir at our vineyard and it is harvested early, but was at a riper sugar level during an earlier rainy period and we were having difficulty keeping SWD under control so picked a bit earlier than we would have preferred. We found that the Surround was washed away enough during this period that we needed to add insecticide spray to help control. It seems that the cooler the weather gets, down into the 40's, does deter reproduction and slows population growth, so maybe you are over the worst of it. Early control seems to be very important to stop them from multiplying exponentially. Once a generation of eggs is laid in the fruit, it becomes extremely hard to stop the cycle.
I look forward to hearing how you made out with harvest. If you'd like, you may contact me by email: contact@ankidaridge.com. I would enjoy comparing our Pinot Noir adventures!
Thank you for writing,
Christine
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Post by swiss winemaker on Oct 11, 2014 19:25:52 GMT
Hi Christine, and everybody else,
Thanks for your reply. Harvest is in full run these days, and obviously our traditional red variety PN is not attacked as much as the early maturing varieties. There are losses of about 5 to 10% at PN, compared to 50 to 70% at the early ones. White varieties are/were mainly harvested with not much impact of SWD. Temperatures are -unfortunately regarding SWD, fortunately regarding maturation - at about 50 - 70f. But it doesn' t seem as the amount of SWD exploded exponentially in the past two or three weeks. I'll harvest PN next week, am courious how the result will be... There are some people that say,the official agricultural boards in Switzerland missed somehow the appearance of SWD this year. Monitorings were made, but concrete hints for steps to fight it came far too late. I guess next year the battle will start earlier, according to what you said about keeping low population from the very beginning. Unless we have a cold winter and these flies will be frozen...
A big pain in the ... this year is rot, due to again pretty warm temperatures at night and enough humidity by fogs, as bad as a syndrome of which i don't know the name in english: helves start to dry from the point of the grape, so berries remain sour. As we harvested Gruner Veltliner yesterday, picking out these berries manually gave us about twice as much work as usual.
I's cool to have this transatlantic exchange. Have to confess though that I'm doing this not as a professional, but since 2006 as a hobby. With about one acre the largest hobby I ever had though...
Question: does anybody know if Surround has an impact on measuring sugar in the must or on the method of Refractometer? I noticed a stop of increasing sugar values after spraying Surround, measured by Refractometer, though weather was perfect and berries seem to taste sweeter. I can't/won't believe the values I measured are going to be true...'cause in the neighbourhood it didn' stop, only nobody sprayed Surround!
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