Vineyard Sanitation

Vineyard Sanitation. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Recently a workshop was held on vineyard sanitation and Dr. Patty Skinkis, Assistant Professor & Viticulture Specialist at Oregon State University says it was an effort to be proactive.

SKINKIS: The workshop was designed out of an increasing concern over leaf roll and mealy bugs which leaf roll is a virus of grapevines and mealy bugs are the insects that vector it or spreads the virus to other plant materials and this is a big problem in the California industry.

It has caused some devastating losses in that grape industry.

SKINKIS: And with the movement of both fruit from California to Oregon wineries we’re seeing that there is a potential there for the insect vectors to be transported within the clusters of the grapes. And also we are concerned about some of the plant materials that are currently planted here in Oregon already having the virus just because of unclean plant material.

A lot of that material comes in from nurseries.

SKINKIS: There’s a certification process that grapevines can go through to be certified free of virus but not all of the grape varieties we have are in fact certified. So it is a matter of getting the industry informed through that workshop of the problem of trying to get people to plant to certified virus free planting stock.

More on Monday.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.