Academic and Industry Perspectives on Biofungicide Use in Vineyards

- In addition to recording, if you haven't used Zoom since 2020, that is perfectly okay.

It does have a chat tool. You can raise your hand.

And to help vocalize questions, we will probably address some of them after the each presentation.

And we have a bunch of panelists here, myself, Jennifer, Alice, Hans, who will be monitoring that chat for our speakers and grower panel, okay.

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- So, my computer's not doing what I wanted to do, but this viticulture and analogy forum, if you haven't joined already, this is been an ongoing thing since December and is a continuation, although a little bit different, of events that were held last year.

There are two monthly webinars.

One in viticulture and enology, and it is a three-state program put on by Penn State, Cornell, and Virginia Tech.

And you can see our hosts at the bottom there.

I am a guest host filling in for Cain Hickey as he travels from an in-person conference.

- Jennifer and Kevin, some of the people are saying that chat has been disabled.

- I see that, and I am working on it.

- [Kevin] Okay, good.

So, the next event we have is "An introduction to Practical and Winery Laboratory Quality" on February 21st at 3:00 PM.

And you can find more information and register for that at the link below, on the bottom of this slide.

Today, we are going to talk about both Academic and Industry Perspectives On Biofungicide Use in Vineyards.

And we have Katie Gold, Dr. Katie Gold, Dr. Mizuho Nita, Karl Hambsch, Paul Brock, and John Santos.

Apologies for the names, you can tell I'm filling in.

No offense hopefully was taken there.

So, we will start with Kaitlin.

We've got about 15 or 20 minutes for Kaitlin.

We will pause for questions.

Some of our speakers do have to leave during the event.

We wanna make sure everybody gets a chance to have some questions answered.

And we've got another 15 or 20 minutes for a Mizuho, and again, some questions.

And then we will end with our grower panel, which is a little more open-ended, so we don't have a necessarily a strict 15-minute timeframe by any stretch.

Well, we should be done around 4:30 though.

Okay, and these are some resources for you, if you're in interested in PSU extension, both the grape team, and the grape and enology team sign up links.

And one more thing I've gotta do.

So, to start with, we have Dr. Kaitlin Gold, is an assistant professor of grape pathology in plant pathology and plant microbiology of this School of Integrated-- Sorry, somebody's got control of my computer.

School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University.

She holds primary research and extension responsibilities for grape disease management in New York State.

Her lab, the Gold Lab, is responsible for grape disease management and focuses on seasonal fungicide efficacy trials for multiple grape diseases within the pathology vineyards, as well as a host of other activities.

And with out further ado, I will turn it over to her and we can get going.

- Sounds good, thanks, Kevin.

So, just confirming my screen is sharing the slideshow, correct?

You're not seeing all my notes?

- Nope, it looks the way it should.

- Awesome, well, thanks for inviting me to be here.

I love participating in these forums; it's such a wonderful community.

So, today, I'll be kicking off our webinar with a discussion of biopesticides for grape disease control based on historic records and ongoing research at the Cornell Pathology Vineyards in Geneva, New York.

My program is somewhat known for our use of varied digital AG technologies, but what you may not know is that we also run four plus acres of fungicide efficacy studies for powdery mildew, downy mildew, black rot, botrytis.

And this year, we're launching a new phomopsis study.

And these all occur within our pathology vineyards at Cornell Agritech in Geneva, New York.

We have over a hundred different applied treatments annually across these five different trials.

And all of these results inform guideline recommendations within the New York and Pennsylvania Pest Disease management guidelines, as well as my annual group disease manifesto.

This work also aligns with a FRAC-40 resistance survey that we've been conducting over the past two and a half years funded by the USDA, especially Crop Block Granting Program.

But before we get started with the real meat of my talk here, I'd like to acknowledge my colleague in the upper right hand corner of the slide, Dave Combs.

Dave is our field research manager.

And throughout this talk, you'll hear me say we quite frequently, like I had absolutely anything to do with the fungicide applications.

Dave runs the entire program.

He's really the the point person for the entire thing, and we'd be absolutely lost without him.

So, this is a joint effort between the two of us and the overall Gold Lab.

So, just an overview for what I'm going to talk about today.

If you only take away one thing, let it be the title of this one side here, which is that proactive protection is an important part of fungicide resistance management.

And this is why I see biofungicides and biopesticides generally as a really integral part of fungicide resistance management.

We know that the-- If we can think about fungicide resistance management as the the roof of a house, right.

The foundation is of course knowledge about factors that affect the development of, like, sorry, that affect the risk of resistance development.

And the two pillars are early detection, and then proactive prevention.

So, biopesticides fit that second category over there.

So, today, I'll talk quickly about what are biopesticides, some use considerations, and then historical performance based on trials at the Cornell pathology vineyards.

So, we know that biopesticides have fundamentally different modes of action from traditional chemistries, and understanding these differences is key to understanding how they can fit into an overall integrated disease management program.

So, without any further ado, just simply, what is a biopesticide?

A biopesticide is a pesticidal product that's derived from natural materials such as animals, plants, bacteria, minerals.

So, you know, EPA will define anything from a kitchen product, such as canola oil and baking soda; that is technically considered to be a biopesticide.

Because it's often really difficult to determine whether a substance meets this criteria for classification as a biopesticide, like when is baking soda just an ingredient versus a biopesticide?

The EPA has a special committee that's dedicated to making these decisions.

Biopesticides are the fastest growing market sector of all pesticides, despite only representing 5% of the global market.

And as of end of 2020, the EPA had 390 different biopesticide active ingredients registered.

And in the five-year period from 2015 to 2020, almost a 100 new biopesticides were active ingredients.

So, not just commercial products, but totally new AIs were registered with the EPA.

And since they generally tend to pose fewer risks than conventional pesticides, the EPA requires way less data to register them than a conventional pesticide does.

So, part of this is why we have so many newly registered.

It's just an easier process.

But it's also kind of this, you know, cascading system.

Because it's less work to register them, there's more and more investment every single year in the development thereof.

So, new biopesticides are often registered in less than a year, compared with an average of way more than three years.

Then here in New York, of course, we have to go through that second round of registration.

So, not only is it faster to get a biopesticide to registration, there's just generally less-- There's just less barriers to the registration process.

The EPA divides biopesticides into three components, which are biochemical, microbial, and planted-induced protectants, which I'll introduce over the next part of this talk here.

But before we get really started, why is there so much interest in biofungicides?

Why is this what we're talking about now?

Well, they're generally less toxic than traditional chemistries.

There's way less risk of off-target environmental effects because of this.

Additionally, they tend to be more effective in small quantities, but this also means that they have a pretty fast decomposition rate as compared to traditional chemistries.

They're also really attractive because of logistics.

They have short reentry interval.

To my knowledge, there are no pre-harvest interval restrictions at all for any biopesticides that are currently labeled for grape disease management.

Additionally, based on how biofungicides work, many of them have absolutely no risk of pathogen resistance development, because they don't actually act upon the pathogens, they're acting upon the host.

Additionally, they're quite attractive because most of them, if not all, are OMRI approved, or they're en route to being OMRI approved, which means you can use them for organic management.

So, biochemical pesticides is a class of biopesticides in general, which the EPA distinguishes as a naturally occurring substance that controls pests with a non-toxic mechanism.

So, I know this kinda sounds like semantics, but understanding these differences is actually really helpful for understanding how they perform in the vineyard.

So, a biochemical pesticide comes from a natural origin.

And in terms of grape disease control, the most common ones tend to be plant extracts and microbial extracts.

So, plant extracts that you might be familiar with include regalia, which is the giant knotweed extract, Thymegard, Timorex, Ecoswing.

This is because, long before people came along, plants had to save themselves from pathogens and pest threats.

So, you're likely a little more familiar with these compounds than you realize, as many naturally occurring compounds such as caffeine and nicotine, these have been harnessed for eons for non-agricultural human use.

The second type of extract is a microbial extract.

So, it's the same thing, it's, you know, as a plant extract, plant makes thing, we harness it, apply to field.

Microbe makes thing, we extract it, harness it, apply it to field.

Microbes have been fighting each other for way longer than they've been fighting plants.

Microbial extracts such as penicillin, the very first antibiotic, are the foundation of much of human medicine, and the same is true for microbial biopesticides as well.

Common examples that you might be familiar with are Romeo as well as Oso.

The final category of biochemical pesticide is a little not as intuitive as the others, and it includes oils and mineral compounds.

So, these are technically considered biochemical pesticides and it's a pretty wide ranging category that includes everything from JMS Stylet-Oil to silicone and copper, as well as phosphoric acid and hydrogen peroxide; so that makes oxidant.

The second category is one that you might be a little more familiar with, but it's also a little more nuanced, and these are microbial pesticides.

So, these are noted by the fact that they're living organisms.

So, this is either a living bacterium, fungus, virus, et cetera, and that is the active ingredient.

So, they're capable of controlling many types of pest and pathogens, although each separate active ingredient is often very specific for its targets.

Such as, if you're like me, I've been watching "The Last of Us," these sorts of fungi and also bacteria tend to be highly evolved to target specific organisms.

For example, there are fungi that can control certain weeds and other fungi that can kill specific insects.

So, the subcategory here of biofungicides has, sorry, went a little ahead of myself, has a couple of different distinctions for the ways that microbial pesticides can act upon plant pathogens to control their activity.

So, the general idea is based upon decades of study that have demonstrated that some beneficial microorganisms, usually ones isolated from soil, can hinder the activity of plant pathogens.

And there are four main mechanisms that this works; the first of which is competition.

So, this is the pretty simple idea, it's that, you know, if there's a ton of this one microbe, there's no room for another more negative microbe to take hold.

So, these biofungicides will compete with plant pathogens for nutrients, infection sites, and just general space, the niche on the leaf without harming the plant.

So, for example, they might colonize the entire root surface and leaving no room for a root pathogen to attack.

Additionally, some biofungicide organisms that operate by this mechanism actually metabolize plant exudates that would normally attract a plant pathogen or stimulate their growth.

So, it's a little, so they're both competing with and they're actively reducing the likelihood that another pesticide, another, sorry, another pathogen can come in and attack, but it's not directly acting upon the pathogen, if that makes sense.

The next category is the exact opposite thereof.

Hold on, oh, man, there we go; and would be paratisism/antibiosis.

So, this is the opposite.

They do directly attack and act upon potential plant pathogens, and this truly harnesses that original like microbe warfare to our benefit.

So, living microorganism that-- A living biofungicide that acts by parasitism will directly attack, consume, or otherwise produce a compound that is plant pathogen destroying.

So, an example of this would be Howler.

And also, a common example of competition , just so you're aware, would be a Double Nickel; that's a really well-known competition-based biofungicide.

The third category is defense induction.

So, these biofungicides don't act upon other microbes either directly or indirectly, but they instead act upon the host.

They activate the plant's own defense system, so that it can better protect itself against plant pathogens.

So, by turning on the SAR system, systemic acquired resistance, they'll improve the plant's innate response to pathogen attack.

And an example of this is Lifegard.

It's the most notable one in this category.

And then final category would be plant growth promotion.

So, these biofungicides, they also act upon the plant, but they do not engage the plant's defense system.

Instead, they act by encouraging the plant to grow.

So, it's kind of more of like an an arms race sort of thing.

Like if I'm just too big to fail, you can't attack me and kill me.

So, those are the sub categorizations of those microbial pesticides of which the majority of the novel products on the market are.

The final type of biopesticide that the EPA defines is a plant included protectant, and this is very uncommon in grape disease control, and also for disease control in general.

And an example of this would be Bt corn.

So, this is most often found in crops that have a much more widespread use of GM technology.

So, this is technically a biopesticide, and not because the gene is of, you know, of a non plant origin.

For example, with Bt corn, they've incorporated the gene for producing that protein from the European-- That conveys resistance to the European corn borer.

Okay, so I promise I'm almost at the part of the talk where we talk about the actual data and really get into it.

But the one thing I really want you to remember as we're starting to talk about biopesticides and how they actually function for grape disease control is that it's really important to remember that they have a fundamentally different mechanism from traditional chemistries, and they act very much like a lock on a door.

So, if you think about it, a good lock will stop opportunistic weak thieves.

But if a thief is really determined or they're in sufficient numbers, they can still break through with enough force.

Additionally, it's important to remember that if the thief's already inside the house when you lock the door, like it's not gonna do anything to help you.

So, for most effective use, biopesticides must be in place before pathogen infection begins as their activity is majorly protective.

Now, a key exception to this would be Stylet-Oil, which is notable for its highly effective eradication for powdery mildew.

So, as I kinda overviewed right here, here we go.

There are some other key differences between biopesticides and traditional chemistries that are important to understand in order to use them effectively.

First of all, as I mentioned, prophylactic applications, these are not rescue materials.

Additionally, because many of these-- There are compounds are actual living organisms, oftentimes, you need way more frequent application, and this is both to protect new growth and to ensure that effective populations of that active microorganism are present.

So, you know, this would would be the case if you have a biopesticide, a microbial pesticide, that works by overcolonizing the niche and just, you know, kind of crowding out anybody else, If you don't keep that application up, you're not going to keep your numbers up, and therefore the efficacy will wane over time.

Also, there's some things to consider that many biofungicides, because they consist of living organisms, they sometimes have different storage, shelf life, or handling requirements than conventional fungicides.

I'm really interested to hear the grower panel perspective on this.

To my understanding, this is not really posed a use barrier here in New York State, but I'm interested to hear the grower's perspective on this.

Additionally, one thing to remember is that, because they'll require that more frequent application, you do have to like take that into account, right.

You know, you're not gonna get 14 days, 21 days out of these.

At best, many times, you'll get seven-day efficacy.

Okay, so we have way more data than I have time to talk.

So, today, I'm just going to focus on some archive data from powdery mildew and downy mildew.

Many of you're aware that my predecessor, Wayne Wilcox, ran a very extensive disease testing program.

So, these numbers that I'm going to present are data that bridge both of our programs, from Wayne's program to mine, and spread over almost 10 years now once we get to this season's worth of data.

So, let's dig into powdery mildew over the years.

So, before I start talking about this graph, I do wanna note that, here, when you see any orange on the screen on the graph, that means that we're talking about control.

So, the Y axis here is percent control provided by that biofungicide, by that biopesticide, against powdery mildew here in this case.

So, when we average the percent control powdery mildew, just by the different categories that we discussed here, plant extracts, microbial extracts, live microbes, and miscellaneous compounds.

Generally, we see that the microbial extracts and miscellaneous compounds, this is for cluster control only, tend to provide the best incidence control.

However, we see that the live microbiofungicides and plant extracts performed somewhat similarly for leaf and cluster control.

So, one thing to note that this is averaging over multiple years, but not necessarily the same number of years for each one.

So, while it gives us a good general trend as to what works, it doesn't necessarily reflect the nuances that come from the different styles of biopesticides, plus the dynamics of a given season, which we, you know, we all understand.

Sometimes, you have bad years.

Sometimes, you have a good year when it comes to disease pressure.

But overall, we do generally see that the microbial extracts tend to provide the most control.

So, now, when we think about downy mildew, again, we see that the live microbes tend to provide fairly equivalent control.

And more generally though, we see that the biopesticides provide better cluster control than they do foliar control.

It's important to note that downy mildew is a very, very aggressive organism, and it's an oomycete.

It's known for its explosive growth potential.

So, I'm not surprised to see that, over the years, biopesticides are not as effective against downy mildew as they are against powdery mildew.

Additionally, powdery mildew has a unique biology that the majority of the fungal structure exists completely outside of the plant, and this makes it particularly susceptible.

You know, it's just all out there in the open.

So, many alternative chemistries, such as biopesticides, tend to be more effective on powdery mildews than they are against other sorts of fungi and oomycetes that have the bulk of their, I guess, their fungal body or oomycete body within the plant, if that makes sense.

So, again, this is averaging over multiple years, but does not necessarily account for the same numbers of years within each of these categories.

We're still figuring out how to make this graph the most interpretable.

So, over the years, while we do see these general trends, it is really important to note that we do see that performance is pressure dependent.

So, in low pressure years, we see outstanding results.

Biopesticide rotations, and also generally just kind of on their own, can provide comparable control to conventional only rotations.

So, here this is powdery mildew damage.

So, I will note here that the Y axis is no longer showing you control, it's the opposite.

It's how much damage there is.

And you can see here that you know, in 2020, our conventional standard rotation and our biopesticide-only rotation, basically the same.

You know, they both provided perfect foliar control, and very excellent, and I would say excellent cluster control.

However, in 2021 and 2022, we see basically the opposite.

That in this these high pressure years, we see that these rotations are not providing sufficient control.

But to be fair, neither are the conventionals or the standards.

You know, we're seeing failures kind of across the board.

And we see that this tracks when we compare both powdery mildew and downy mildew.

So, in high pressure years, we see control failures across the board.

So, if you're seeing-- I mean it's just kind of, you know, it's just kind of logic.

If you're seeing your Vivando fail, you're not gonna get great performance out of your Lifegard in that year.

So, we see that trend in both conventional and biopesticides that, in light years, they do really well.

And then moderate years, it's kind of dependent on some other things.

And in high pressure years, they just don't stand the test.

But it is especially notable that with downy mildew, we do see these control failures in high pressure years when you're relying on biopesticides alone.

So, getting back to that, why use biopesticides?

Well, generally, they do work.

I mean, the data shows it like in a good year, you get just as good control from a biopesticide as you do a conventional.

And this is because many of the new biopesticides that are on the market now are the product of more innovative selection pipelines.

There have been some really cool advances in how industry discovers biopesticides informed by genomics.

And we're now starting to see those products that have come out of a, you know, a decade's worth of innovation hit the market.

They have undeniable logistical benefits.

I mean, we already kind of discussed those; no reentry interval, no pre-harvest interval.

And additionally based on their mechanism, there just is fundamentally, some of them have no risk of pathogen resistance development, which really in my perspective, leads to the most important reason, or I would say the most extensive justification for using a biopesticide, which is that they can reduce conventional pesticide usage, while maintaining crop quality and yield.

And this is absolutely essential for preserving the longevity of our highly effective commercial, sorry, conventional fungicides for grape disease control.

You know it and I know it, we are losing chemistry faster than we're getting it replaced when it comes to these conventionals.

We have widespread resistance to FRAC-40 and downy mildew now, as well as notable resistance to staphyla, DMI fungicides, et cetera.

So, using biopesticides can help reduce the overall usage of conventionals, therefore extending the longevity we have to use them with to get control from.

So, if we break this down further, let's take a look at 2020, which was, as you know, generally a low pressure year.

The Y axis here is, once again, this is going back to control.

So, this is percent control provided.

So, in this low pressure year, we saw that biopesticide rotations reduced synthetic chemistry input while maintaining, basically equivalent powdery mildew control.

So, if you take a look right here, so this Vivando on the far left.

And you can compare this Vivando/Lifegard rotation and this Vivando/Howler rotation.

So, used half as much synthetic chemistry as the Vivando straight through, and provided, you know, for the most part, pretty much comparable control.

We also see the same trends when we compare Gatten straight through alone versus a rotation of Gatten and Lifegard.

This is once again for powdery mildew control.

If we break this down further looking at downy mildew, we see the trend-- The trend is consistent; we see when you compare Zampro usage to a rotation of Lifegard and Zampro that the control is basically equivalent.

That by using biopesticides in rotations with synthetics, you can reduce your overall usage, therefore putting less pressure on your pathogen populations to develop resistance while maintaining comparable control, therefore can comparable marketable yield.

So, we often get asked, "Can biopesticides be used alone?" And you know the, the answer is yes, but, and I will say, we really see that biopesticides add the most value when they're used either in rotation or as a tank mix with conventional chemistries.

But if you do wish to use them alone, it's very important to being aware of their limitations.

Understanding the how your biofungicide works, knowing that there are different mechanisms, thereof, is key to understanding how it will perform within your grape disease control program.

Additionally, acknowledging that critical disease windows may require intervention.

I do not recommend relying on biopesticides alone during the critical control period of prebloom, just don't do that.

You know, think about-- It's really important to think about this as like a systems perspective, right.

Sustainability isn't one of those black or white issues.

If you want to use more biopesticides, I encourage you to do so.

We see that they work, but don't take that all or nothing approach; I don't see it panning out.

Also know that biopesticides, they do require more frequent applications, and that they have variable performance depending on the the pathogen.

But if you are willing to do, you know, five-day, seven-day intervals throughout the entire season, maybe you have a smaller opportunity, smaller operation, maybe then a full biopesticide program will be right for you.

But it's just about making an informed decision.

So, key takeaways here: biopesticides are a practical and useful tool for vineyard disease management, and their efficacy has improved because of recent innovations in discovery pipelines.

The products that we're seeing enter the market now are way better than the original biopesticides that we had.

They have fundamentally different modes of action than conventional chemistries.

And it's important to understand that when you're integrating them into your disease control program.

They don't work just the way a conventional does.

They have different modes of action.

And additionally, this does mean that resistance to biopesticides is very, very unlikely.

I'm not going to say it's impossible.

But if you have a biofungicide that's acting upon the plant to induce defenses, your pathogen isn't going to develop resistance to that.

It's just not acting upon it.

Additionally, you wanna remember that these are protectants.

These are not rescue materials because they have the greatest action before.

Remember, think about that lock and the thief metaphor.

And then, finally, under low to moderate disease pressure, we see that many biopesticides work just as well with conventional materials and especially those rotations.

You can get just as much control out of a biopesticide rotation as you can for a conventional straight in those low to moderate disease pressure years.

However, you know, we don't get to place an order ahead of time for the type of pressure year we're going to get.

So, it is really important to be aware of what's going on this season, and think on your feet during the season, right.

Think about, what is the environmental conditions?

What am I seeing on the ground?

And make those game time calls.

And then as a final note, biopesticides we see from our data, that they add the most value when used as tank mixes or rotational partners, and a program that includes conventionals as well.

So, biopesticides are a really big part of my research program, and are applied in translational goals.

We have some cool future research coming up, including our beautiful new Traminettes vineyard that we planted in 2022.

We're going to be exploring further optimization of timing and tank mix, such as what are the best biopesticide plus conventional mixes, and also how does timing of doing those mixing impact overall season long efficacy?

We're also looking to kind of branch into a little more cultivar-specific biopesticide testing.

This is in collaboration with some of ongoing work we're doing with the newly launched, (indistinct)

Is there a varietal and disease susceptibility interaction with biopesticides?

Such as, do we see some of these newly released hybrids with a lot of innate tolerance?

Do we see that certain biopesticides jive with them best?

Do we get this same level of control with a biopesticide with a plant variety that has, you know, more resistance in its background?

And then also, we're looking to expand our disease efficacy trials, including in our beautiful new traminettes.

We're thinking about doing a year, like a totally biopesticide-only efficacy study.

So, we're kind of, we're still working that out, but we have some cool stuff on the horizon.

And then, I'm not sure how I'm doing on time.

I do see that there are questions in the chat, but before we get to questions, I will note that if you prefer your material, to consume material as a written format, you can take a picture of this QR code, and it will bring you to an article that myself and Dave Combs wrote in Appelation Cornell last year, summarizing our findings from the data that I discussed in this talk in article format.

Once again, I will acknowledge Dave Combs who is the man on the ground with doing all the fungicide applications, and my partner in crime when it comes to analyzing this efficacy data, as well as our funding agencies and allied industries and lab members.

So, with that, I will, there we go, I will take questions.

- Thank you, Katie, great job.

I just wanted to, if you don't mind, I'll read off some of the questions.

And if we don't get to them all before the next presentation, then maybe you can answer them.

- Sure, sounds great.

- Okay, so I'm gonna go in order, and the first one is, is it possible to design a disease management program that includes only biologicals for susceptible varieties, such as Chardonnay or cab franc?

And then, again, for Concord?" - Well, it's possible to do a lot of things, but is it advisable?

I think that's the key question.

So, yes, it is absolutely possible, but I would not advise it.

I strongly recommend you consider using programs integrating both conventionals and biopesticides into your program.

And using conventionals at those critical control periods doesn't mean that you can't use biopesticides later on, or before, or with those conventional chemistries.

So, and especially, for European grapevine like Chardonnay, like Chardonnay dies if you look at it funny, like, no, I would not recommend you do a biopesticide-only program for that.

Now, Concord, now, Concord does have a more innate resistance.

It's a much more hearty variety, but still, I really recommend that kind of middle ground, integrating a little bit of both.

I don't recommend biopesticide only, nor do I recommend conventional only.

I strongly recommend integrating both into your disease control program.

- Thank you, does a plant defense system like cytisine need EPA approval for use?

- What was that called?

- It's the second question in there, and I'm not familiar with it, so I apologize.

The plant defense system like cytisine.

- [Kaitlin] Oh, okay, So, any sort of product that wants to market itself as a biopesticide needs EPA approval.

So, anything like, you know, if Arm & Hammer wants to market their baking soda as a bio pesticide, even if it's the same biopesticide in my fridge, they still have to get it registered with the EPA.

So, while I could take the baking soda in my fridge and dump it on my tomatoes and see what happens, you know, everything that wants to market itself as a biopesticide has to undergo EPA registration.

- And does that include stuff like compost teas?

Are they considered biopesticides?

- That's a good question, I would thematically consider them to be biopesticides.

However, I'm not sure if the EPA considers them to be so because a compost tea doesn't have a defined active in it, and that's what the EPA looks for.

What is the active ingredient?

Because you're not registering, like, the title of your product, you know, you're not registering, like, well, to an extent, you are registering like Howler.

But what you're really registering is the AI, and a compost tea doesn't have an AI.

But from a kind of just a thematic and thinking about biopesticides, I would consider compost teas to be more biopesticide than not.

- Thank you, what varietals were the efficacy data collected on?

- [Kaitlin] Ah, thank you, sorry, I meant to mention that as we go through the graph.

So, all of our powdery mildew and downy data was collected on primarily Chardonnay, though our cluster data for downy mildew was collected on our chancellor grape lines.

We do conduct our black rot trial.

I didn't have enough time today to discuss that data, that's in our Niagaras, and our botrytis data is collected in vignoles.

- Wow, there's a bunch of them in here.

I'm gonna shoot a couple more at you and then maybe- - Sure, and then any that I can't finish, I'll just answer.

- Okay, thank you, were the biopesticides and conventionals applied at the same time and a single product efficacy trials?

- So, it depends on our, depending...

So, depending on the graph and also depending on the season.

So, that graph that I showed that integrates all, like them by the different categories like microbial extracts, plant extracts, no, that's just an aggregation of all of our trial data.

So, that, we're still trying to optimize how best to present that data because we do know that we have like interesting insights to be derived from it.

However, we have different years, different programs, et cetera.

So, not necessarily for that one.

But within our trials, especially since I took over, and you know, now, I'm in charge of the records, we do have much more detailed notes on what was applied and in what rotation which we have published via PDMR, and also-- Dave and I are working together to add in a lot of these biopesticides and our efficacy results 'cause now, you know, the Gold Lab's three years old now, could you imagine?

So, now, we have a lot of stuff to put into the guidelines, especially this year.

- [Jennifer] Fantastic, I'm going to ask one more, and I'm not really going in order here.

And thank you, everybody.

You have some great questions out there- - Yeah, thank you so much, wow, this is great.

- Yeah, so can the live organisms be tank mixed with copper, or will the copper kill the organisms?

- That is a great question.

It's actually one of the things that we do wanna look into this year, though Dave is not thrilled about messing around with Cueva.

I don't think anyone's heard about messing around with Cueva.

So, there, to some extent, right, like copper is one of the only antibacterial, like, pesticides we have, so wouldn't it kill those living microorganisms?

And I've gotten conflicting recommendations from, to no fault of their own, but I've got conflicting recommendations from the reps.

But I think the reason is like we just don't know.

So, we're hoping to trial that in a much more like controlled, defined way with this season and also in future seasons to be able to answer that question.

'Cause theoretically, right, you'd think it would.

But does it? It's unclear.

Sorry, that was such a non-answer.

(Jennifer laughs)

- Thank you, Katie, for your time.

I greatly appreciate-- Yeah, absolutely, thanks for including me, and I'll answer these questions that I wasn't able to address live in the chat, or in the Q&A thing.

- [Jennifer] Perfect, Kevin?

- Next up we have Dr. Mizuho Nita.

He is an assistant professor in the department of plant pathology, physiology, and weed science at Virginia Tech.

His academic interests include applied plant pathology and plant disease epidemiology.

His work includes the exploration of cultural and chemical means of disease management, fungicide and fungicide alternative testing, variety susceptibility evaluation, and the development of novel diagnostic tools.

With that, I will turn it over.

- [Mizuho] All right, well, thank you very much, Kevin, and thank you for the invitation to talk in this webinar.

Do you see my screen fine?

- [Kevin] Yes, I do, it looks- - [Mizuho] Great, So that was a great introduction.

I'm glad that, you know, Katie went in front of me because I don't have to talk about, you know, the definition of biological materials.

But anyway, so what I wanna talk about is, you know, result from our recent field trials if using, quote, unquote, "alternatives" to make it kind of simple, especially on the late season route.

And then also, I'm gonna mention a little bit about the protective materials.

It's more like thinking out the box type approach.

And then, as with Katie, we have the technician to help us on the field.

I kind of wish I have a team as Katie has.

I'm the one for spring, so it's a little bit different story.

But anyway, I do have some help for that trial and so on.

And then I typically upload my presentation to my blog, which is showing here.

ext.grapepathology, in one word, .org, or you can Google my name or Virginia, and then grape disease, and you should able to find it too.

All right, so the first one is sour rot.

You probably have seen it, but I just wanna show the picture of it.

All right, So the idea here is to basically try to follow up what, you know, the Cornell developed a few years ago with Megan Hall on how to control sour rot.

In that trial, they use Mustang MAXX and then Oxidate, but we want to try different combinations.

So, what we picked was the Mustang MAXX and the Entrust SC as the insect insecticide.

Entrust is the only (indistinct) spinosad.

And then a fungicide we used in here is Oxidate and also Double Nickel, Theia, which is a new material coming from AgBiome.

We may able to see it this year.

Howler, and then Switch is because they actually this sour the separation material and then Captan.

The application timing is twice, once at the 15 weeks and then about seven to 10 days after that.

And then we have a three defined locations, one at the our experimental vineyard and then two locations, Stevens City and the Leesburg, Virginia where is the commercial vineyard.

On that commercial vineyard what we did was, we basically apply on top of what growers are applying.

Alright and then I will show that the pretty much the same format as throughout this presentation.

Once you see on this figure on your left is a blue bars which is instance in percentage and the red by the severity in the percentage for instance, yes and no and sever severities path and area disease.

And then I believe everything, but once I had the negative control on top and then these are treatment.

So, in here what I see is that the-- Unfortunately, they do have a significant difference which showing that these letters, but it was not significantly different from negative control.

But numerically, Mustang MAXX and Oxidate works pretty well and the same goes with the severity.

And the one thing I should note in the sour rot trial is that sour rot tend to have a cluster of a bunches with the sour rot, and then because of there they have a big variation among even within the panel, and then blocks and then, you know, experiment.

So, it's more difficult to find that the statistically significant difference in here.

And then when we repeat the same experiment in the 2021, a different location once again this a negative control indeed treatment.

And then for this particular location, Mustang MAXX and Switch which is showing here and Entrust SC, plus Oso, provided significant reaction compared with the negative control.

But now other treatment did non-numerically lower incidence and severity as well.

In that in terms of severity was not significant.

But once again there numerical difference between negative control and the other ones.

And then in this case Oso somehow it is not doing as good as, you know, at location.

And then when we repeat it in 2022, we added few more Oxidate simply because they came up with a Oxidate 5.0 and they want to test in the field.

So, we have a two different rates of Oxidate 5.0 and then basically what we found here is that the Mustang MAXX, plus Switch is once again winner in this case.

And then Oxidate 5.0, half percent somehow the lower percentage that worked better in this case.

And then also with the Mustang MAXX, and then Mustang MAXX, plus Howler was performing really well.

The reason why I'm not showing on 2021 the data with Howler is the location we tested, we didn't get any sour rot.

So, once again there were quite a bit of variation in the sour rot But anyhow, so looks like these are the one that is promising compared with other one.

But as Katie kind of mentioned, too and sometimes no the efficacy is not that consistent and then this is where is showing it same vineyard and then pretty much next to each other sometimes, but it the same combination with different rate, didn't perform in the same manner.

You would imagine that the 1% rate would be better than 0.5 and so on, but somehow didn't turn it to be that way.

And then at Leesburg location where an overall right several level was in the lower than other locations.

You know, we didn't see any significant difference, but all the treatment was in numerically lower.

So, that once again know when Katie mentioned about if the pressure's low, know this material tend to, you know, work better.

I think it's kind of holding truth some this aspect as well.

Right, in summary so far Mustang MAXX and Oxidate 2.0/5.0 or Mustang MAXX with Switch or Mustang MAXX, plus Oro is working pretty well.

And then we probably need to have a one more year of data for Mustang MAXX with Howler.

And then just on a side note, we had a a variety trial where we spread also on Double Nickel combination throughout the year and then this actually suppressed sour rot pretty good.

So, based on the result we saw in this trial, looks like also doing some trick in here.

And then unfortunately, Entrust SC performed poorly, but once again when the pressure was low, you know, we did see an numerical difference between the control and then treatment.

And then next, in the future study, we'll look into other OMRI certified in insecticide to see if we can find something better.

So, once again, due to the aggregation of disease and then high variation among the the panel and the block, oftentimes, we have a difficulty seeing statistical difference.

And then also while we're talking about sour rot, we have three different fruit flies at least I can recognize in the vineyard based on our trap in last year.

So, we have a common fruit flies and also Suzuki fly, which is a spotted-wing dosophila, and also we have an African fig fly which tend to come in a mass.

So, I was wondering know how these other fruit flies are contributing to the the sour rot or not.

Right, and then I will switch gear in here to talk about ripe rot.

I'm not sure that it's common in the New York, but it has been pretty common across in the Virginia vineyards.

Typical symptom is this black discoloration and it's almost become (indistinct) as the time goes.

And also with the, especially with the red, we can see actual pinkish spore coming, oozing out from the berries.

You can see on the white too, but it's a little bit more difficult to see it just because of the color contrast.

Right, and then this trial we've been trying that the biological control agent Howler and Theia.

Nutrients, the reason why here is that the in apple, they have some study done with bitter rot which is called by the same group of pathogen and then if they spray a calcium it worked better.

So, we did that and we didn't work unfortunately for the grapes, but these two material at least Kendal has a promising result.

So, we decided to include on the this trial, so this Kendal and the LoKomotive is basically a nutrient.

And the plant defense activator, which is not registered for grapes, but, you know, every other crops, and then Lifegard, it's primarily for downy mildew and powdery mildew, but I just wanna see it how it goes, and then quote unquote, "And Kendal," even though it's a nutrient, but if you go to their website, they're actually talking about, you know, plant defense activation.

And then on the previous round, we study we did try Vacciplant, but it didn't perform very well.

So, I'm not including on this trial, and then positive controls to be compared with is Switch which has been a better option for us.

So, the other background with the ripe rot study here is that it's really difficult disease to deal with.

One of the primary reasons I think is because we are dealing with not only one pathogen group, but the different species of pathogens, causing the same disease, and then they are different in terms of their reaction to the fungicide.

So, because of that, just because one year Switch works on this particular vineyard, doesn't mean that it equal on next year.

So, it has to be a consistent trend; that's why I think this, you know, a biological agent and other option can be really useful, that's why I start working on this.

But once again, as Katie mentioned, really great to go after her because she explained pretty much everything I wanna say.

So, its has to be applied before this is happened and then also it might take time for them to get ready going.

So, in order not to have any excuse for this trial, what I did was we start spend from prebloom to veraison in the 14 day interval.

So, we are had about five to six applications so that we can really cover the panels with this materials.

And then after two years we identified a few good ones so we decided to do the combinations in 2022 and there shortly bit of data from there.

For there, we didn't do the whole season approach, but we applied the prebloom and then, veraison, and then two weeks after, veraison.

So, it's only three applications that we made, and the locations are our research vineyard and the Purcelville and Aldie, Virginia.

And once again, you know, the Purcellville and the Aldie is a commercial vineyard and we sprayed in addition to what they spray regularly.

All right, and on Aldie locations, nearly all treatment resulted in significantly lower ripe rot incidence and severity, which was great news because, once again, in the previous conventional approach, you know, hit and miss.

So, I was really excited to see this result.

So, all the products but Howler in here in the incidence was not significantly different.

But when we take a look at severity, it was significantly lower than the control, so that was good news.

And then, once again really low disease pressure location here.

It did suppress disease numerically quite well as well in this case in the Purcellville location, was not significant as you see on this big error bar, but it looks like, you know, there-- It's something's going on.

And then I just for your information on that particular location, we have a sour rot outbreak too, so I decided to take a data on it.

So, unfortunately none of the product was different on the active check, although Actiguard had a an quite big good reduction.

The take-home message here is we do need insecticide to control sour rot.

So, that's, you know, kind of confirmation for what we are doing in the previous trials.

And then so once again, great to be after Katie.

If you have an outbreak then, unfortunately none of the product is looks promising.

So, this is an instance, it's nearly a hundred percent across the board, but when we take a look at the severity, Kendal in here was a significantly different from negative control showing here.

So, that was encouraging to see that and also say Switch had numerical reaction from negative control.

Alright, so once again, you know, after we found some of the better materials, we decided to combine them.

In this trials, due to the spacing mutation, we didn't do the combination of the the biological and then biological or the plant defense activate combination.

But we did combine with the conventional material.

So, bottom half is the same as a previous experiment, but the top one, this three combination is Switch.

This is the typo by the way, so Switch and Kendal, so it's both are combined and applied three times, prebloom, veraison and then two weeks after veraison on this.

These are are not typo.

So, (indistinct) for Mancozeb, we spray Mancozeb at bloom, then forward with the two applications of Kendal or Howler or Actiguard.

In here, the same deal Aprovia was sprayed at the bloom and then Kendal, Howler, and Actiguard was sprayed on the veraison and then two weeks after veraison.

And everything below this red line is significantly lower than the negative check showing here.

So nearly all the combination looks like it worked fairly well, which was pretty encouraging and knowing how bad we are performing on that other trials in the past.

So, now, I'm pretty happy to see this results, so I will definitely include that combination of these three materials.

Not not using the convention to see if that, you know, works or not.

We'll see how it goes in next year or this season I should say.

All right, so really briefly I will talk about, you know, protective shelter.

So, if you remember, you know your pathologist talking about a disease triangle.

In order for us to have a disease, we have to have a host, which is a grape, a pathogen, and then environment.

Oftentimes environment is-- We are talking about rain, you know, downy mildew, ripe rot, they are driven by rain.

So, if you have a piece of plastic to basically have umbrella to protect their berries, theoretically disease won't happen because the rain is not hitting it.

So, we try to, you know, experiment there.

I'm sorry, oops, that by basically doing the proof of concept study by placing at the 18 inches long, no painter plastic, cut into the length and then we stapled onto the fast catch wire which is set around, you know, 16 to 18 inches from the cordon and then just leave it as is.

The reason why we didn't have a a structure to support the umbrella is because if you keep the ladder out, it'll kind of push it to make a natural umbrella and then if you're wondering-- Now, I don't wanna use the plastic in my vineyard so we actually try with the photo degradable mulch, which is a piece of-- It's in plastic in the last two years.

Now, it has been working pretty well for us too.

And then timing, so today I just wanna focus on the timing of application.

So, we apply this plastic filter at the 50% bloom, pea-size and then veraison and also compare with the no cover, and then we just spray regular fungicide on that.

It's little bit, you know, a loose schedule so that we can get some disease going, but we had a season long spray program.

All right, so once again, did the treatment of 50% bloom, pea-size, veraison, and no cover.

So, this is the data for the ripe rot.

So, with the ripe rot, you know, it looks like (indistinct) the better.

So, if you ha have a cover at the 50% bloom, you actually significantly reduce the amount of ripe rot and the reduction rate was pretty big.

And then sour rot, looks like they have a reduction in disease regardless of application timing at least for the incidents.

Of course, I was focusing on ripe rot, so I was not really thinking about sour rot, but if we try next year, I probably gonna put some aero sticky trap to see in if we can see the difference between the a fruit flies population, inside and outside.

But looks like there was something going on over there too.

And then powdery mildew, our application worked better in here compared with the no cover.

However, this is one of the better year in when we place plastic without adequate spray program before we put the plastic on, then sometimes it goes other way around because whatever protect it under the powder mildew, which doesn't require any rain to get going, they actually grow really bad within the plastics.

That's something we have to tweak our method.

All right, in summary, for sour rot growing back, some combination looks promising, but once again the variation is really big so it's not like a they can do a hundred percent control.

and then Entrust SC unfortunately it didn't do a good job, compared with the Mustang MAXX and we still have to look for alternatives.

All right, ripe rot, if we have a low to medium level ripe rot or but Howler significantly reduced ripe rot.

And then at high level Kendal suppress the disease in two years in a row.

And then also in 2022, we have outbreak of black rot, and in here Kendal was the only one who looks promising.

So, we'll definitely keep looking into this material.

However, the problem, potential program here is it had no the poash in it and then that's something, you know, it might not be favored by winemakers, especially if you decide to apply late season, veraison.

I just don't know and what kind of implication it has for the wine quality.

And then none of the treatment works consistently, but based on the last year's data combination with the conventional material looks really promising.

So, we'll definitely repeat that in this year.

And then I might take on additional materials at this point and also under our conditions.

You know, before we started today, you know, we are talking about how snow get in morning and then I hear in the New York they get snow the zero and then I'm actually in the main campus at today, but know our road was 41, so our environment is quite different.

So, we have to think about that when we are thinking-- You are talk thinking about your application too.

But anyway, in general, once again I'm kind of repeating what Katie said, but to compare with conventional options, efficacy is lower and less consistent.

However, you know, I do agree with Katie that it'll help us to spray less and then prolong shelf life of conventional material.

One of one potential issue here is that as with any fungicide, it doesn't matter it's conventional or biologicals, we really need to know the target pathogen that the material can control.

The problem here with the this biological product is that this label tend to increase so many different pathogens, probably because, you know, the requirement by EPA is less restrictive or maybe the difference in that the company's policy, I don't know what's going on, but I tend to see lot of diseases listed.

And it may be true, no it may be, you know, the same group of pathogen worked on some other crops, but it doesn't mean that it works on the grapes.

So, this is the way we have to do the ground (indistinct)

of this product.

And, then that's why I'm spending time on our research projects.

And then use case scenario; could be a tank mix as I mentioned Aria and also Katie mentioned, rotation partner, and also the other potential use is spray to fill the gap.

Let's say if you have a (indistinct) application and it was leading close to the, your legal limit of how many application you can make, but you wanna keep (indistinct) for the bloom application, for example.

Then, I think, we can use this material to fill the gap, depending that once again target pathogens.

And the other potential use, especially the once you know the target pathogen is, you know, to apply, then we can use it to before the onset of particular pathogen.

Now, once again, know the beauty of, and the most effective use of this material is to be a proactive protective material.

So, if you have have that, and if you know which one can control what, then you can use it at slightly before our typical critical period to suppress the disease progress.

And then I think that this is where we, you know, it research get really interesting.

And then, you know, Katie also mentioned about it too, but the use of these material with the disease resistant cultivars; hybrid or you know, newly introduced ones, that's something, you know, we haven't explored yet.

But it would be interesting to know if this material works better than the better in situation than the Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, which tend to get lot of diseases.

Alright, that's it, as mentioned earlier, you know, all the study is done not only by me, but all the other members in the lab.

So, with that I'm happy to take any questions.

- Thank you so much Dr. Nita.

There is a question in the Q&A that I would like to read for you please.

And that is that Mustang MAXX seems to be an integral part of sour rot treatments along with biofungicides, yet fruit flies seem to have a lot of resistance to Mustang MAXX.

Are there other substitutes that could be applied late in-season for a short pre-harvest interval that would work?

- Yeah, that's a really exciting question and I was hoping that the interest would be the one.

Unfortunately I have a space limitation and also I wanted-- I'm a pathologist so I only see that in how the disease part works out first.

So, that's why I only use the Mustang MAXX interest.

But we do have, you know, I'm pretty sure Katie has it too, but we do have a series of recommendations for alternative to the Mustang MAXX and then that can be useful that the fruit flies management.

So, if you could look into your pest management guide from your state, they list know couple different materials.

But yes, I know, especially in the New York, it hasn't a big issue with the fruit fly resistant to the Mustang MAXX and we really have to think different material to cover that.

- Thank you so much, that was all of the questions that we have in the Q&A.

Alice, are you-- - Actually, I have a question.

Hi Mizuho, it's Alice Wise from Long Island.

- Yeah.

How common is biofungicide use in the industry there in Virginia?

- Yeah, that's another good question.

So, it has been discussed quite a bit and then lot of people use it, but to be honest, I don't know how much they rely on it now.

I have heard from every other grower that I talk to, they have something in it.

The Howler, Lifegard, what have you.

So, it's very recognized, but often time they are not really rely on it.

You know, Katie and I preach, it'll be a good product to be mixed, but it's not to be not relied on it.

Not at least this point.

So, yeah, to answer your question, it has been used more often and and more widely than I thought, you know, let's say in five, six years ago.

- Mizuho, thanks a lot for your presentation.

I know we all found it helpful in terms of trying to learn more about biopesticides.

I know at least in our region, they're not too widely used yet, but a lot of people are starting to consider them.

We do have from a bunch of different places, a little bit of diversity here, a few growers who have some experience in different areas related to biopesticides.

And I'm gonna take a minute to introduce them.

So, we have Paul Brock, the co-owner and winemaker for a Silver Thread winery in the Finger Lakes, and he's got a background in wine and wine education and they purchased the winery, I think, in 2011.

And they have focused on styles that are best for the Finger Lakes or classic in the Finger Lakes in cool climate viticulture.

We also have Karl.

Karl is the owner of Loving Cup Vineyards and Winery and he's in Charlottesville and this is one of the few organic wineries on the east coast.

Karl has first focused on variety trials to start an organic winery with varieties that have characteristics and natural disease resistance to withstand the mid-atlantic region that we all know and love.

Beyond variety trials experience with biopesticides is a another important tool in the toolbox for organic management, I would say.

And then we have John Santos, he is Haslett's vineyard manager.

Over the years, John has had his fingers in crop load management, mini minimizing pesticide use, compost cover crops and a host of other issues surrounding sustainability in the vineyard.

And I will turn it over before we run out of time, 'cause I think we all want to hear from these guys.

Thanks a lot for joining us.

I know sometimes grower panels, you know, you guys have jobs in the vineyards and in the wineries, so it's usually our job to do extension, but we know that growers sometimes learn best from each other.

So, I really appreciate you all being here.

- So, why don't we, why don't we start with, yeah, why don't we have each of our panelists kind of go through and just kind of give a quick introduction and talk a little bit about why they've chosen to go with kinda a program using biopesticides, including biopesticides and kind of just your experience briefly and then we'll hopefully get some questions for you guys.

Paul, do you wanna start?

- Sure I was lucky enough to buy a vineyard back in 2011 that was actually used in biopesticides as early as 20 years ago with early versions of Regalia and a couple other ones that existed back then.

And I do intend to dig into some of our records here, but I really got into it.

I would use an on and off, but 2018 we were really kind of doubled down on it.

At one vineyard where we just about used extensively organic and biological control materials that here with really good success.

And after that we kind of moved it into the entire vineyard.

So, all of our spray program now heavily rely on biopesticides with combination of both sulfur and copper throughout the year.

And I haven't gotten rid of a few conventional things as Katie was mentioning.

You know, at bloom it might be good to add something.

So we are still using (indistinct) that time and early in season I'll just say we're always using Nu Film P as a spreader sticker.

All of these materials really work better when they can adhere better to the plant and Nu Film P is kind of the one that you see recommended most often.

From an organic standpoint, we rely on a rotation of Regalia, Lifegard and Stargus.

Throughout the early part of the season when we're using (indistinct) or copper and always have sulfur in the tank early in the season, late in the season after brazen when we cut out sulfur.

We'll continue using some copper, but we add in ProBlad Verde and OSO, and we never have a tank mixture that only has one chemistry for any one pathogen, whether that be, you know, a knockout chemistry or just one that kind of has some effectiveness.

I've spent a lot of time looking at not just Katie and Wayne's results, but results from other studies from around the country trying to figure out what actually has some efficacy.

So, I'm always combining those chemistry.

So, later on in the season, I haven't used Captan since I think 2015 or 2016, we're solely relying by biological materials and a little bit of copper to control disease.

So, yeah, I enjoy it.

I think it's great to be able to walk into your vineyard.

Oh, and Thyme Guard is another one that I kind of spray throughout.

I just kind of have it in just about every tank and I don't know what it's doing, but it's hopefully doing something and that's the other thing, it's like some of these things I don't know what they're doing all the time, but this seems to work, this program that we've come up with.

Last thing I'll say before I let the next person go.

It is expensive and I think that's a one thing, you know, the science can get away from you, but when you look at how much these materials cost, if you're using them intensively, it's not cheap.

So, more people need to start using 'em so the price comes down, right.

So, that'll solve that, I hope.

- Why don't we switch locations a little bit and have Karl go next.

- Hi, yeah, so I'm Karl from Loving Cup Vineyard.

You guys hear me, okay.

Okay, yeah, so, we're in central Virginia, Albemarle County.

We're a tiny postage jam vineyard, less than five acres.

We're certified organic, so we exclusively spray OMRI materials, almost exclusively.

We do make some teas, some botanical teas and compost tea and, you know, that's not, that's not regulated that way.

What we spray honestly is only part of what we do.

You know, we don't rely on sprays and we can't because our, you know, organic spray don't work that well.

as everyone has already discussed.

we don't have any synthetics in order to, you know, mix in, to boost up the efficacy of the biopesticides.

But we're using cultural controls and relying heavily on the disease resistance of the hybrids that we grow.

So, we don't grow any vinifera that would be kind of pointless.

I mean, we did have a shorravo, which was a cievenna racing cross early on.

We got rid of that.

But yeah, we're relying on the varieties natural resistance to combine with our own canopy management and the ONRI approved materials that we use.

Yeah, I also, I don't never have-- I never have just one thing in the tank, but we don't honestly spray that much, you know, and we can't because most of the materials that we've tried just don't work very well.

I mean, I've...

Double Nickel also, all these things were Regalia, these things that I've heard people use.

None of those things work for us.

I mean, I probably can count on one hand materials that I actually can quantify measurable efficacy on.

And so, yeah, we can hope that things work, but we tend to really push these materials to their limits.

And I'm sure that's not what they were designed for, but you know, we don't have a lot of tools in the toolbox; that's what we do.

We really do expose the limitations of these materials by only using them, that's probably all I have to say, but I'm happy to answer any questions when the time comes.

- Karl, I'll just ask you one real quick one 'cause I know it's, there's a question in the Q&A, but can you just tell us real quickly what varieties you are growing?

- Right, I can tell you how many-- The varieties that we've ripped out is greater than the number of the varieties that we grow.

So, currently we have in the ground Cayuga White as our only white variety.

It's a Cornell variety released in the early seventies.

Corot Noir is also a Cornell variety from 2006, I think.

And Marquette from University of Minnesota, I think released the same year.

- Great, thanks, yeah, we'll get to a few more questions here in a little bit, I think.

We'll bounce back up to the Finger Lakes again, John, where apparently it's very dark.

- [John] Yeah, so speaking from the Cape, I started using biologicals in 2013 when I was given Botector by a rep and did a trial on vignoles with the Botector and Wayne Wilcox came out and evaluated that trial and the Botector worked as well as the conventional materials, Vanguard, Elevate and Rovral on the botrytis in the vignoles and actually worked better than the conventional on sour rot.

Now, since then, Botector, I don't see it for grapes.

I know it's like a blossom tector or something like that for fruit trees.

And I don't know if the reason it's not for grapes anymore is because the rate that they had if you actually had to pay for it, was really expensive or whether there was some other reason they dropped it.

But I've moved on to using some Double Nickel, some ProBlad, some Howler.

I've used Regalia and Stargus.

I'm farming 50 acres, mostly vinifera.

And a lot of that for Hazlitt is rather conventional farming, not a whole lot of biologicals.

Mostly the biologicals used towards the end of the season for botrytis control and very late season powdery control after we've stopped using sulfur.

But on my own farm, I have four and a half acres and I don't use Manza or Captan.

I'll use, again, like Paul, something like a Stroby or a FRAC-40 material around bloom time.

But other than that it's copper, sulfur and biological materials.

And actually in 2018, I had better control over sour rot in my own vineyard than at Haslett's where I was using more conventional materials.

But as Paul said, it can get very expensive, especially if you're applying multiple ones.

And other than that one year with the Botector, I'm not doing this as trials, so I don't have a block where I sprayed only things like Double Nickel, and another block that got Vanguard.

So, you know, there's no real way to tell how well it's working compared to conventional materials.

But I do feel that things like ProBlad are pretty effective and offer a way to control things towards the end of the season without having things that are leaving residues.

- Yeah, I'll just jump in there and say everything I'm farming is also vinifera and-- John, you said 2018 you had really good luck with with with sour rot control with the biologicals?

- [John] Yes.

- Yeah, I had the same experience.

I had a vineyard that didn't have sour rot and Riesling in 2018 and that was the one that I primarily just used biologicals and organics.

I don't know why all the conventional vineyards around had sour rot, but that one was pretty flawless.

One of the things I was interested in Mizuho saying is, and I guess I had a question for Mizuho about the nutrients, and I think you said calcium, but that's something I've been had a lot of interest in too and I've been using some kinda calcium application from Bloom to veraison recently.

So, I don't know what it's doing, if it's working for anything, but it seems to be some data out there, especially apples and some grapes so was happy to see to do proper-- (Paul voice becomes muffled)

Make sure that it works.

- [Mizuho] Yeah, so just follow up on that.

I was only interested in ripe rot because it has been a big issue for us.

For ripe rot, it didn't do much, but unfortunately I didn't take much data on the other diseases.

And also it's also aimed only at the food zone on my trial.

But yeah, I know in the retrospect I should have just sprayed the whole canopy to see if has any effect on the powdery mildew too.

- Do you mind if I pop in for a second?

- [Hans] Go for it.

So, it looks like a lot of the biopesticides have some level of efficacy against Downey and powdery.

It's black rot where these biopesticides currently fail us.

Also, anthracnose is an issue for us because we grow exclusively hybrids and anthrax.

Anthracnose, as far as I'm aware, is not really an issue with vinifera.

So, yeah, the, I think once more folks, as Paul said, start using these materials, more money will be invested in them and the companies that them will work beyond the easy diseases like downy and powdery and will work towards the diseases that are more difficultly controlled, both with natural genetics as well as with these, you know, with materials.

So, I think black rod is where to go.

And if it wasn't for black rod, I think all three of us would be essentially spraying an organic program.

So, if there's anyone who has the ability to affect research towards biopesticides on this of please give some attention to black rot.

- [John] I disagree about the Downy thing though.

We have had a heck of a time controlling Downy in recent seasons, especially late in the year.

And I think a lot of that has to do with the higher nighttime temperatures later into the season with really high humidity.

So, if it gets a foothold, it can really take off in September.

- Don't forget the cloudy days too, John.

Those aren't any good for downing either.

I think that they're all a problem and, and you know, being in Virginia, Karl, you know, it's funny to hear you say I guess not.

I mean Richard Beel who used to manage Silver Thread organically, would always say he was very lucky not to have black rot and that cultural practices, as you were mentioning, were always his best, the best thing that he had going against black rot.

But you know, in that vineyard where I didn't have downy, powdery, botrytis.

In 2018, I did have something that nobody could identify and-- I've been calling test phomopsis, but Katie hasn't been able to confirm that yet, 'cause I've seen it in other years too.

But when you lose 15 to 20% of your crop from something that nobody can identify and everything that you can identify is controlled, kinda like, okay, well time to, to bring in some other chemistry to help fix that 'cause it's not a problem when you're spraying other stuff.

So, one of the cautionary tales that I've been given as I've gotten into this is that it's really hard to just stop doing a conventional approach and start doing something very organic or biological.

You really have to wean yourself into it and do it little by little and see what you can trust and what you can't trust.

I appreciate that Katie's doing a lot of rotations.

I'm really interested mostly in mixes and seeing what works best with the mixes.

And again, late season biological mixes seem to be working here, which is great, so.

- [Jennifer] Paul-- - [Hans] And, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- I was just-- There was a question in the Q&A Paul about what spreader sticker that you mentioned.

- Oh yeah, so, it's not on the tip of my tongue.

Nu Film P is what I use, which is a pinnie, it's a plant derived.

It really needs sunlight in order to spray, so you can't really spray at night with it.

It needs the sunlight to actually loomerize and and stick onto the plant.

- Go ahead Karl, go ahead.

- Yeah, I had a question for the other two panelists about what their late season program is for downey?

Since that is a concern for both of them.

I'm curious to see how you address it.

- [Hans] Go ahead, John.

- [John] Well, on my own farm, I rely a lot on copper and I have used some Thyme Guard when I do see it, the oil spot's starting to show up to try and reduce the amount of spoilation on a lot of the Hazlitt stuff I'm using more conventional materials, even using captan still.

But yeah, on my own farm, I don't use any captan, so it's a lot, it's more relying on copper.

I've got the Thyme Guard going in and about half a percent in every spray until the very end where sour rot is pretty much the only thing to be concerned about.

But like John, I'll be using copper late in the season, but also Lifegard, Stargus or primarily what I'm using to treat downey.

And I really think if you've got a good hold on downey, up until that point, these things do a really good job.

But if you had a downey outbreak earlier, it's really hard to keep 'em under control when you are just relying on these things.

I mean, you absolutely would need copper in the tank on top of it.

So, Karl, how long have you been been in this game trying to figure out what you can grow organically down there?

- Yeah, we're relatively new at it.

We just had our 10th harvest so, you know, long enough to have seen more failures than successes for sure.

But I still don't feel like we have a handle on what we're doing.

You know, every year is different.

You know, we'll get a hundred inches of rain like we did in 2018, and then we'll get like 20 some in 2019.

So, the seasons are so different as I'm sure is the case up there as well.

But I mean, we've gone through so many materials that, and I don't think that we do it in as a scientific way as we possibly could.

You know, where we leave whole rows unsprayed because you can just kiss that fruit goodbye.

But, you know, we'll do some, we have an over the row sprayer so we'll tank mix.

I think this last year we did Howler, so we'll tank mix Howler every other row along with, you know, everything else.

And you know that essentially how we'll determine, you know, whether something works, if the odd rows look any different than the even rows.

So, that's as scientific as we get.

- I'd like to throw a question out to, and this goes back, I think somebody asked this a little bit earlier, but maybe me think of it again Paul, as you were, as you were speaking, but all for all three of you, are there certain materials that you found that just do not belong in the tank together?

I mean, kind of the old classics of sulfur and captan and that kind of stuff.

But Paul, you were talking about using copper in late season sprays.

Somebody asked the question of Katie, you know, copper is an antibiological material.

So, or any or any other combinations that all three of you might have found that just you, you really should stay away from?

- Well, I'll just throw this out there.

I know some people are afraid of putting Thyme Guard in the tank with sulfur and 'cause they-- Thyme Guard is advertised in some places, and I don't know if they've changed this as as an oil, but it's not an oil, it's actually an (indistinct) extract.

So I have been fine to mix it with sulfur in my conditions, but I also pay attention to the dew point and make sure things dry really fast.

I do not use Stylet-Oil because I do use sulfur so early in the season.

You know, and that's why I won't use Stylet-Oil 'cause I'm using sulfur other times and I just don't want to see that interaction.

Other than that, I have not seen any bad interactions with tank mixing, but I do always pay attention and read.

And I guess the biggest thing is when you get into all those mixing things, you can get burned if you've got too many things in the tanks, you're, you're driving your electrical conductivity up and you're gonna be more prone to burning when you have a whole bunch of stuff in the tanks.

So, I think that's one of the things I've learned over the years is just simplify as much as you can.

- Yeah, a Nu Film P doesn't tech mix with Cueva, it doesn't tech mix with lime sulfur, both of those, it seems to coagulate and clogs up the screens behind the nozzles.

But that's just in terms of like mix incompatibility.

I've asked Certis every year for the last three or four years about combining Lifegard with copper and they initially were saying that material, and I don't know if it extends to all biologicals, but that that material needs a higher, the higher rate for tank mixing with copper, which sounds really stupid.

I mean, it sounds suspect, it's like one product is gonna cancel out the other.

But then this last year, because again, it's an unsatisfying answer, so I just, you know, assume I'm gonna talk to a different tech person every year.

And so, this last year they said absolutely no issue with tank mixing Cueva, which is their copper and Lifegard.

So, I don't know what that means, if it means that they have changed their opinion or this tech person knows more or less than the previous tech reps.

But yeah, I think the compatibility, the technic compatibility of microbials and other sprays is that-- We need to know that because these sprays as Paul said, are ridiculously expensive and what's the point of putting in, you know, $200 a pound of Lifegard or whatever it is, you know, in a tank if you're just killing it with whatever else you're putting in your tank.

So, I don't know, I mean there are folks like Jeanette Smith, you know, who have that, the Vine Smith chart, you know, that back compatibility that takes it part of the way there for sure, but like having something that all the manufacturers can-- Instead of generalizing tank mix compatibility, but actually saying this actually goes with this particular product or, you know, instead of just saying fixed copper, what about the different formulations of fixed copper, they're gonna react differently.

So, I think that compatibility question is important when they answer.

- John, just before you go ahead, I know we're at 4:30 when we're scheduled to end.

And so, as long as our speakers are okay hanging around for a little while, there's definitely some more questions, we would appreciate it.

But folks, if we know, if you have to go, thank you very much for attending and the next seminar, and I'm not forgetting you John, but the next seminar will be at the beginning of March and I don't have the date right in front of me at the moment, but we'll all be telling you about it and it will be on grape growing and climate change, featuring Dr. Greg Jones from Oregon.

So, thank you all again, if you have to take off, we understand, but as long as our speakers can stick around a little bit, we'll stick around too.

So, John, go ahead, sorry.

- [John] Yeah, I've read somewhere that, and I don't remember where this was, that the biologicals can also be affected by pressure and that you should be using low spray pressures when you have biologicals in the tank because you could actually, and that that would be the live biologicals, not something like ProGlad or Oso or, you know, it'd be things like Double Nickel or Howler where the organism is actually alive or something like compost tea where if you're spraying it high pressures, you could be killing the organisms just with the pressure at the nozzle.

- Okay, we'll go through a few more of the questions that are here in the Q&A then, probably jump around a little bit like Jen.

Well, oh, maybe this is for all, I guess for all three of you, but do you feel that marketing the grapes and wine as sustainable/organic can justify, you're talking about how expensive these materials can be, does that justify the cost?

I mean, I don't know if you're-- I don't know if the questioner is asking for a literal payback, you know, one for one, but do you find that there's a benefit from your customers?

- Can we afford to lose all this chemistry of the, the conventional stuff?

I mean, we gotta do something, but from a a winery standpoint, you know, I can't afford to sell these grapes to anybody, you know, it's just too expensive.

I've gotta, I gotta sell the grapes as wine, people.

And other than that, I don't know how much of that to sell 'em for to make it realistic to, you know, to make money as a grower.

Would I pay from another grower if they were all in?

You know, let's talk.

- [John] Yeah, I mean we keep harping on cost of those materials, but, you know, some of the conventional materials are rather expensive too.

And then, you know, like if you're spraying like Revus Top and you have an absolute failure on downy control, that's really expensive.

So, if there are other things that, you know, don't have those problems where it's a single site like the Strobys and the Frac-40 materials where they work great until they don't work at all.

(John laughs)

Versus having, mixing some things in that have some efficacy and preserve the conventional materials, you know, and I'm not on the marketing end of anything, so I just grow the grapes, so I can't answer any of those other questions.

- Karl, do you have anything you wanted to-- Yeah, yeah, I agree with him.

I think marketing should stay out of the vineyard.

We need to make decisions that are best for the vineyard than grapes and the vines and, you know.

They can say whatever they want in the tasting room, but I think opening up the the sprays as a conversation in the tasting room is a Pandora's box and I don't think anyone wants to be constrained by that.

I think we'd much rather just do what's best for ourselves and our principles in our vineyard and just, you know, let the wine speak for itself and just not try to talk about, you know, who spraying what; that doesn't make any sense, I don't think there.

- There's definitely a small percentage of the industry or the consumer base that wants to hear about it, but, as you said Karl, most people just care about what's in the glass and if they like it, and I think that's-- With younger consumers, I think you're seeing more and more of them concerned about what's being spray and asking those questions.

So, I do interact in the room and Karl, you're right, it is hard to have those conversations and it's taken a lot of trial and error to figure out how to best talk about it.

But the fact is we're growing something in an environment.

It's not, you know-- It's been an evolving and I think when you look at it from that approach, people understand like, yeah, you, we have to spray something, especially in our climate here on the east coast.

We're all in this together really, so.

- Yeah, agreed, I definitely agree with that.

I just hesitate that we assign marketing as justification for the expense in the vineyard.

- We shouldn't leave for sure.

- That's one of the last last considerations we should have.

- I have a question for the panelists, philos-wise.

Do you feel-- I mean, you all are doing this on your own farms, do you feel that a barrier to adoption of this philosophy is, you know, that managers feel under the gun to produce a, you know, a clean vineyard with a clean crop?

- [John] Well, John Wagner who farms what 3, 400 acres is in the biointensive group and does use some of these materials as well.

So, I don't know how much of an answer to that is to the question, but, you know, there are larger farms in the Finger Lakes that are working with these materials.

Mark Wagner over at Lamoreaux Landing is also using some of 'em.

- We have growers using some of them.

I would not say, you know, exclusively, but.

- [John] Yeah, well, I think like Paul was talking, a lot of these people are working them into their spray program in part, again, to preserve some of the conventionals.

So, they're not applying, you know, Vanguard so many times over the years that Vanguard just doesn't work and then they have botrytis everywhere or something like that.

And I do see like a shift in the thought process on a lot of these bigger farms, and you know, just looking at John Wagner's farm again, his son is really involved in the farm now too, and they've started using a roller crimper and planting more cover crops in between the rows and there, you know, kind of a shift in the thought process with the younger generation getting involved in the farm.

- There's so much more to farming grapes.

And I think, Karl, you really touched on this, besides spraying, and, you know, with the biointensive group, all these growers we're talking about everything that we're trying that might not be conventionally thought.

You know, I always like to use the comparison that back when the vinifera started to be grown on the east coast, specifically here in the Finger Lakes, they didn't really know how to do it.

It took 'em a while, they figured out how to do it with a lot of help from Cornell and now we've got, you know, books published every year that help us figure out how to use materials.

And it wasn't until last year really that a lot of the biological materials showed up in that book.

And, you know, we've been talking about them as a group and bang on Han's door and Katie's door and you know, give us more information from a scientific standpoint.

It's a lot easier for us to use them than it is for Cornell or Penn State or Virginia Tech to get good information.

It takes more time to get good information than it takes for us to just put in our spray tanks and use them in tea and see does it work.

- Yeah, if I had to respond to that question, I'd say it's easy that if you make a mistake in the vineyard, that you're the only one that suffers from it.

If I had a boss, I would be much more conservative and careful and would not take as many risks as I do.

But I've gotten used to disappointing myself so I can be a little more experimental.

- Great, so I'm just gonna bang through these last couple of questions that are in here, in the Q&A before we wrap up.

First of all, just one comment here.

I don't know if this person is a rep or whatever, but says Howler can be mixed with all of the fungicides.

Just make sure it goes in the tank first.

So, I, like I said, I don't know if that's somebody who as a rep or just has other experience.

But one question, gallons per acre applied with biologicals versus conventional, any differences?

Do you change your gallonage when you do it.

- We're doing-- (webinar participants murmuring)

- We're doing 22 gallons, early season, when there's not a lot of canopy if you're only going down one row.

and then once we get a good size canopy, we're doing 44 gallons throughout.

I am spraying with Achema though.

So, Karl, when you talked about Cueva not being compatible with Nu Film because are screens in front of the nozzles, I don't have that for the Achema, so I'm just not a problem for me.

- [John] As I said earlier, I am also using Achema, so no nozzles on there, but I am running every center all season long, but I'm starting out at like 16 gallons to the acre early in the season and working up and I will go as high as 80 gallons with end of the season, but try to side in blocks.

- Yeah, has much more to do with the volume of the canopy that you have to cover more so than the materials that you're using.

So, as long as you have the amount of material that's labeled for, and there's issues about how labels work, but we don't need to get into that.

- [John] I will, in addition to saying that I sprayed 16 gallons in the early part of the season is I mix as if I'm spraying 50 gallons to the acre and then spray 16 gallons to the acre.

So, the amount of material on a per acre basis, the chemicals is way, way lower.

The concept is that if, at full canopy, five ounces controls the disease and it's the concentration in the water droplet on the surface that's providing that control, that as long as I mix at the same rate, the water droplet has the same concentration in it.

So, now since I use much less liquid to cover the surface, I'm using far less chemical.

- You know, one of the things I really like about some of these biological materials, John, is that they give you a concentration versus a per acre rate.

And I think that's a much better way to spray anything, that's not how things are labeled.

So, not everything (indistinct)

- [John] Yeah, I concur.

- [Webinar Participant] Yeah.

- [Mizuho] Yep, I agree too. (Mizuho laughs)

All right, well it's 4:45.

I think we've pretty much gone through most of the questions here.

We've covered a lot today.

So, I know on, on behalf of Cain who I think is still winging his way back from the south somewhere from a talk, thank you to all of our speakers, to Katie and Mizuho and to Paul and John and Karl for offering up your experiences and Mizuho for your data and we really appreciate it.

Obviously, it's a topic that there's a lot of interest in, there's a growing interest in it also, so definitely more to come.

I appreciate Paul's comment about the fact that we really didn't have much in our New York and Pennsylvania guidelines until a couple of years ago, but as you can see with, with Katie's program and Mizuho and other places, that there's getting more attention paid to these.

So, definitely a lot more to come on this for sure.

So I dunno if any of the other moderators have anything else to say, but if not, like I said, our next seminar is gonna be a month from, I think it's a month from today, actually the seventh.

Again, it'll be on climate change with Dr. Greg Jones from Oregon.

It's kind of one of the world experts on vineyards and climate change impacts.

So, if you're interested in that, be sure to register for that seminar.

We'll be getting those that link out to everybody for registration if you haven't done that already.

So, keep an eye open for that.

Otherwise, thank you again to our panelists and to our speakers, and thank you all for participating and being part of the seminar today.

So, thank you very much.

Thank you everybody, thank you, Hans.

- [Webinar Participant] Thank you.

- Appreciate it.

- [Hans] Yeah, thanks a lot Paul.