Sustainable Winegrowing

We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. To help you communicate your sustainable practices with customers we are bringing you Marketing Tip Mondays from SIP Certified. Let's listen in to our latest tip so you can show your customers that you share their values. Seasons of Sustainability: Summer

While many industries slowdown in the summer, the warmer, longer days bring a boost of activity in the world of wine. We can always expect to see an increase in tourists and locals looking to explore the wineries and vineyards in the coming summer months, all while the excitement of harvest brews behind the scenes. Here are some tips to help prepare you for the busy season ahead!

Teach your team about your practices so they can make your customers experience special. Bring your farmer or winemaker into your next team meeting to talk about what's going on right now from conserving water by monitoring soil and plant moisture status to conserving energy in the cellar with night fans. These timely practices are also perfect for social media.

We also have two great PDF downloads you can share with your staff to help them answer the most frequently asked questions in the tasting room like "What is an example of sustainable farming?" and "How often do you water the vines?".

On your podcast player, scroll down to the show notes to get all the resources. You can also subscribe to our Marketing Tips eNewsletter to get the latest consumer trends, branding methods, and sales tactics delivered right to your inbox.

Thanks for listening to Marketing Tips Monday from SIP Certified. Let us know what you think of these micro podcasts by sending an email to [email protected].

References:

• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Seasons of Sustainability: Summer
• SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff
• Talking to Your Customers About Your Sustainable Practices

All winegrowers are on the same quest to find virus negative plant material. James Stamp, President at Stamp Associates Viticulture, Inc, works with his clients to find the highest quality grapevine plants to establish new vineyards. This thorough process to find virus negative material includes partnering with nurseries that previously delivered good product. There is oversight through all stages of production from testing material to harvesting and grafting, from production to delivery, and the final selection of plants for the vineyard site. The number one tip to get quality grapevines is to pay attention to where the plant material is coming from, have great communication with the nursery, and sample the finished product for Red Blotch and Leaf Roll Three. References:

06-03-2022 | Roller Crimper Demo Tailgate, King City, CA (Event registration)

20: Dr. Mark Fuchs | Red Blotch Virus in Grapevines (podcast)

49: Stopping the Spread of Red Leaf Viruses (podcast)

71: New Techniques to Detect Grapevine Leafroll Disease (podcast)

131: Virus Detection in Grapevines

Grape Program at Foundation Plant Services

Grapevine propagation: principles and methods for the production of high-quality grapevine planting material

Leafroll 3 Virus (GLRaV3) AKA Grapevine Leafroll Disease in Washington

Red Blotch Virus

SIP Certified

Sourcing Grapevines for a New Vineyard

Stamp Associates Viticulture, Inc.

Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022

Virus Disease Guide in Grapes

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

My name is Craig Macmillan and I am your host, as always. Today we have with us James Stamp, who is president of Stamp Associates Viticulture, Incorporated. And thanks for being on the show, James. I'm really looking forward to this.

James Stamp 0:13

Yes, thanks for having me, Craig, I'm looking forward to it as well.

Craig Macmillan 0:15

So James, you have a interesting company. And you've had an interesting career over the years. But right now, your company does a number of very interesting kind of things in three different areas. And what I was hoping to do is talk about each of those individually in a little bit of detail and have you explain kind of how those things work. First of all, you folks do independent analysis and quality control for grapevine nursery stock production. Tell me more about that.

James Stamp 0:39

Our clients hire us to find the highest quality grapevine plants for establishing new vineyards. And what we do is to select nurseries that we have previous experience with in terms of delivering good product. And nurseries, where we have previously inspected and tested their increased box and the increase box, as you know, are the rootstock and science sources of materials for propagation. So we, we put together a proposal for our clients to provide the best quality of plant materials that we can. And then we get involved with discussing with nurseries, which materials are best to use. We oversee the testing of those materials, we oversee the harvesting and grafting of those materials. We oversee the production of those materials, that particular nurseries, and we oversee the delivery and final selection of those plants to the vineyard sites. And as part of our, our understanding with our growers, we are available to look at those plants during the course of the vineyard development. We'd like to be there to see how our plants grow. Once they're planted,

Craig Macmillan 1:54

A grower will come to you and say I'm planting a vineyard, I want to make sure that it's virus free, or disease disease free, I would imagine. And you folks start at the very beginning, you go out and look at the blocks where the first cuttings are going to come from the good gonna go into those plants. Is that right?

James Stamp 2:12

Yes. When I first started doing this, in 1999, I was asked to look at finished product. In other words, vines that had already been grafted, already been grown in the field, already been growing the greenhouse. And at that point, it's very difficult to have any real control over the quality of the finished product. So it seemed to me like a good idea to start with the source materials that we use to graph the vines and to make sure the source materials, the root stock on the scion, are of high quality and disease, pathogen test negative and that's exactly how we start by finding the source materials for the production of grape vine plants ultimately to be planted in the vineyards.

Craig Macmillan 2:53

Obviously, if someone's going to plant, let's say hundreds of 1000s of vines, we're talking about hundreds of 1000s of cuttings. Is that right?

James Stamp 3:03

Hundreds of 1000s of vines. Well, yeah, we're talking a lot of cuttings and in generally speaking from an increased block or rootstock increase block, you might expect to get say 100 cuttings from every mother vine or every increased block vine 100 cuttings for the rootstock. And for the scion material, the Cabernet, the Viognier whatever it might be, you're probably going to get somewhere from 50 buds or 50 cuttings per vine up to maybe 500 cuttings per vine for some very vigorous clones such as maybe Pinot Noir or Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc we sometimes see 500 cuttings per vine.

Craig Macmillan 3:40

How many samples are you taking how many pieces of wood are you taking in? What are you testing them for and how?

James Stamp 3:47

We with the advent or the discovery of Red Blotch, it became clear that the only way to produce vines that are free of Red Blotch disease is to test every plant that is used as a source of materials for that for that finished product. So if you do the math, nurseries will graft anywhere from 1.5 times, one and a half times to two times the amount of vines per finished product. So if you have an order for 10,000 vines, they might refer 20,000 vines. So we have to test enough mother vines or increase block vines which is the correct term, to provide us with 20,000 rootstock cuttings and 20,000, say Cabernet Sauvignon buds. Let's say you've got just for example, a Cab Sauvignon plant that's giving you 500 buds per vine and you want 20,000, you want 20,000 bugs, then you've got to test 40 plants to get 20,000 buds. 40 times 500 is 20,000. Depending on the size of the plant, if its is a large established plant, we want to take more cuttings per vine than if it's a smaller plant, because viruses are not evenly distributed within the mother vine or the increase block vine. So if it's a larger vine, we might take four pieces per vine. If it's a smaller vine we might take two pieces per vine. So that's roughly sort of math that's involved in deciding how many samples we take. We are taking 1000s of pieces of cutting and putting them together into samples that we then test for a range of pathogens. And generally speaking, there are roughly 15 or so, 16 pathogens that fall on our testing list. And they include all the common viruses, the leaf roll viruses, the vitiviruses, A, B, D, Red Blotch virus, Fan Leaf virus, we also test the Pierce's Disease, we also test for Agrobacterium Vits, which is the causative agent of crown gall disease, which is a bacterium. And our pathogen panel depends on really the program that we're involved with. If we're, if we're working with materials where we have a good history of testing, we might adjust the panel slightly. It also depends on the budget, if a client has a limited budget, then we will focus on viruses that we think we'll find or viruses that we have found in the past. So but generally speaking, we have a pathogen panel of roughly 15 to 16 organisms that we look for routinely.

Craig Macmillan 6:27

And in so it sounds like you're using a composite sample, like you may do a composite sample of rootstock and the comparison sample of scion.

James Stamp 6:34

Exactly, yes.

Craig Macmillan 6:36

Does that composite sample comprise a sample from every one of the vines involved?

James Stamp 6:43

Yes.

Craig Macmillan 6:44

So when I get a result back, I can be confident that all the plants that provided the rootstock or the scion are clean.

James Stamp 6:52

Well, clean is, you know, clean is a word that you will not get anybody, you know, real scientists to use. Okay, these are all virus test negative. It's, you know, it's hard to prove a negative, but the sampling that we do shows that the vines, or the pieces of tissue that we've tested are negative for the virus. And they know and we were sampling for a wide range of pathogens, but it's to say it's clean, to say it's 100% guaranteed not to have viruses. It's something that people don't do because you're it's really, it's really hard to prove a negative. But we've we're sampling, we're sampling every plant and every plant is testing negative. And therefore, we can assume that those plants do not contain the viruses that we're testing for or the pathogens that we're testing for.

Craig Macmillan 7:35

Excellent. I think that's a really important distinction to make various negative versus cleaning in quotes. So that's the so the points along the way, we've got the rootstock, we've got the scion, is there inspection, testing, investigation as we go through the grafting process and the callusing process and the greenhouse process?

James Stamp 7:53

Well, really the first, the first step in the process to produce high quality plants is to visually evaluate the scion increase blocks before you test them. So there's no point in spending a lot of money on testing plant materials that don't look good. So we go to the nurseries that we have orders with for the following year, or the year after that. We go to those nurseries and look at their scion increased blocks in October. So we look in October 2021. At the Cab 47, or the Cab 30 or the Sauvignon Blanc 01 or the Pinot Noir, you know 777, and we find contiguous rows and contiguous sets of vines that look healthy. If they look good. In other words, they don't look like the disease, they don't look like they're struggling to grow. Because if a plant is looking diseased, or looking like it's having a hard time growing, that would not be the sort of material you want to select for high quality vine production. So if we see any issues with the vines during our October walkthrough, then we do a couple of things. One, well the nursery is usually with us so the nursery will then want to check those vines and test them or remove them, test them and remove them if necessary, to see if they are virus or there's something else wrong with them. And then once we find clean vines, then we will test them. So the first thing to do is find the clean plants, and this is done in October. Test them. We tag the plants so that we make sure we put our labels on plant materials that we want to graft. And then we see those materials getting harvested and then moved into cold storage and then we're at the nursery when those materials are grafted. So that we can see that the materials we tested and viewed in October and November are now actually on the grafting bench at the nursery February and March of the following year.

Craig Macmillan 9:47

That's impressive. That is very impressive. Yeah, and I'm assuming you've had good luck with it as it sounds like you couldn't be any more fastidious.

James Stamp 9:55

You know, it was really an eye opening moment, I think for me, when Red Blotch became a problem, as you know, it was in late 2012. And we have a lot of plant materials that we were to test for Red Blotch because the new PCR test was made available at that point in time. And it was clear that sampling increased block vines, on a sort of a random basis, sampling the plants in the nursery, the nursery vineyard that gives you the cuttings, not sampling every plant, but sampling say, even I'd say 95% level of confidence with a 5% confidence interval, you're still only sampling a very small amount of plants that are going to be used to give you the cuttings that you need. So the only way to detect the virus, which might only be present in a few plants, but if you're getting 400 cuttings from those one or two plants are infected, you're actually you know, producing a lot of virus that can be contaminated. So the only way to do it is to test every plant.

Craig Macmillan 10:53

Right. And then is there some additional quality control once they come out of the nursery for you?

James Stamp 10:59

I mean, nursery production is a very primitive craft, if you will. It's still very, very basic. It's basically putting rootstock and science together and allowing them to graft and providing good conditions for that. And what they want is they want to first of all the cuttings should be have high carbohydrate reserves. So they're strong cuttings. They actually have a good wood to pith ratio. So a small amount of pith, a good amount of wood, which represents good carbohydrate reserves. They should be grown in a way that produces cuttings that are good for grafting rather than growing these cuttings in a way that is good for fruit production. And so we want to see what's going on right from the very beginning. So I actually just gave a presentation the other day. And my first slide on the presentation says that what does every grower want? Every grower wants, or what they really want is no surprises. And that is high quality vines being available, in the right amount, on time and of good quality. Because the last thing a grower wants is to hear from a nursery when they call up and say, you know what, my 10,000 grafted vines delivered in a couple of weeks time and they say, well, we've only got 1000. So what we do, and it's really it's really it really sort of comes with the territory that if you're going to be involved in trying to produce high quality, disease test negative vines, then really in a way, it's I feel like it's on us to make sure the plants exist as well. If you will.

Craig Macmillan 12:22

So yeah, absolutely.

James Stamp 12:24

And on the one hand, we you know, we always have this provision that if we do a lot of testing and the plants are diseased at the end of the process, well, then we're not going to plant them. But we do want to make sure that the plants are available for all we can. So we keep we keep very close track on the way these vines are growing after grafting. And so we'd like to see how many plants of the 10,000, that grafted, get grafted, how many get planted up. So maybe in order for 5000 vines 10,000 get grafted, but only 7500 get grafted up. Well, that's actually a good number. But if you graft 10,000 vines, and the only plant 1000 vines up, you know, within four or five weeks of grafting that you've got a problem. And so it's part of our program is to how to solve that problem. So we need to be in touch with the nurseries right, all the time so that if there's a problem, we have time to fix it so that our clients have no surprises. And maybe they have to spend more money perhaps on testing more materials because we found virus, or it may be that the nursery had a bad take, in which case we have to graft more materials. But ultimately, we want to make sure that our clients plant the vines they want on time, and that those vines are of good quality. So what we do is work to solve problems as they develop. And you know, over the years, we haven't had very many problems. But again, I think we paid close attention to what's going on.

Craig Macmillan 13:41

And suddenly, it just occurred to me, so how many tests per 1000 or 10,000 plants when we're when we're talking about the finished product, how many samples went into, how many tests went into per per 1000, or per 10,000, or whatever?

James Stamp 13:55

You know, it's very variable. Let's say if you're, we're testing for 15 to 15, or 16 different pathogens, and we may be testing, one set of testing at least two plants for every 100 finished product. So if you've got say 1000 vines then, we're probably testing protesting 20 upfront vines, for every 1000 vines of finished, but actually 20 times, multiply that by two. So 20 rootstock and 20 scion approximately. So we're testing roughly 40 plants for every 1000 finished plants. Those 40 plants are being tested for, say 16 pathogens. So it's 40 times 60. If you do that multiple it's you know, 3200 or something like that, or whatever it is. That's a rough idea.

Craig Macmillan 14:44

Of actual individual samples, test. I'm gonna pay so much per test, it's going to be 1000s of tests?

James Stamp 14:52

Yeah, I mean, we test 1000s of samples.

Craig Macmillan 14:55

I guess. Wow.

James Stamp 14:56

We have a pretty large business. I think we were probably the The largest business of its kind that does this type of work, I think. Probably anywhere in the world, I guess. And, you know, it involves a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot of work, especially when you're dealing with a biological system like this, which is open to all sorts of climates and you know, biological impact. You know, drought one year can have a, some sort of weird impact the next year. So just like, you know, getting your fruit every year when you're growing your grapevines is difficult, convoluted, it's based on many different parameters. It's the same thing with producing grafted vines. A lot of different parameters affect the look of the finished product. In fact, this year, we looked at a bunch of dormant routings, and they were really super high quality this year did very, very nice, dormant routings this year with just very good internal approach. So not only is the virus testing and the pathogen testing, we've talked about, the other side of what we do is physical quality. We're involved in selecting the best plants that come through the propagation cycle. So for example, if you grafted 10,000 vines, you have an order for 5000 vines, you have 7500 vines that make it through to the finished product line. Well, we want to select the best 5000 of those 7500. And that involves having a good understanding of the parameters that are involved with a grapevine finished product, which include things like does it have a good root system? Does it have a properly healed graft union? Are the wounds on the rootstock shaft properly healed? Do you have good caliper? Do you have good lignification of the shoot spur? And all those, those different facets of the finished product are related to the pathogenic load of the vine when you start off. So if you if you're starting from materials that have high levels of fungal pathogens, and fungal pathogens are everywhere, in the nursery production cycle. And so the way to ensure you have best product is just is to select pathogens that have very good, that have demonstrated very, very good wound healing. Because those vines won't heal their wounds properly, they won't have good graft wounds, they won't have good root systems. They will have rootstock shaft disbudding sites that are not calloused over, they will have lesions running down from the graft union and running up from the base of the plant if they'd been developed or propagated from poor quality plant material. So the physical quality of the vine and vine and the pathogen status of the virus sort of closely interwoven.

Craig Macmillan 17:28

So this involves looking at every single vine?

James Stamp 17:31

No, actually it involves, what we do is we we sample every increase block vine that is used to produce the vine. And then we look at the finished product by sampling the finished product in terms of its physical evaluation. And I've been doing this, I mean, I started doing this in 1999. And in 1999, I looked at 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of finished product. And you know, you look at finished product, and you just like anything else, you really get to know what finished product looks like looks like. You get to know, you know what a batch of plants looks like. You know, you get to know how many vines you need to look at, to know in other words, to feel comfortable that you're looking, that what you're looking at is representative of the rest of it. And so you use that information, that experience to help you to determine how to evaluate finished product.

Craig Macmillan 18:19

And so regarding, actually regarding methodology, it sounds to me like you have a fairly set methodology that you have tested over using years and years. And there's a quantification component to this as well. So you can say we found this percentage of this as opposed to that, as opposed to that.

James Stamp 18:36

That's exactly right. Yeah. So I think if you would, I mean, you know, things have changed. And we today, we don't get to look at much finished product that we haven't been involved with, right from the very beginning. But sometimes we do and it's always interesting to do that. Because I mean, obviously there's different types of finished product, the potted plants, and then there are dormant bareroot, finish plants. Any any batch of vines that get delivered are going to have some type of defect. The question is, what are those defects and what proportion of the finished product has those defects. So for example, if it's if it's a if it's a severe problem, we'll cancel the order. If it's if it's a severe problem, but in a very small amount of plants, and we know how to identify that problem, then we can have the nursery go back and grade out the bad vines, or we can grade out the bad vines ourselves and take the good vines and get rid of the bad vines. Or we can advise our clients who maybe are buying vines from a nursery I will tell them well this is how you identify the problem in these vines by doing this type of physical manipulation of the plant. It'll tell you what's right or what's wrong with it. But generally speaking, our plants when they've been through our program are very high physical quality with a very small amount of defects or zero defects. Obviously, there's always gonna be some defects. And you really are the final line of defense is the guy who's planting the vine. But our goal is to to sell to our clients vines, the pathogen test negative or very high quality, where there will be no rejects or planting time.

Craig Macmillan 20:07

So let's move into the field. So you also conducted valuations of newly planted and established vineyards for their performance, presumably in the face of pathogen load. How do you conduct these kinds of evaluations? What kind of methodology do you use?

James Stamp 20:22

I have to say, I don't do we don't do this, as much as we used to do this was a much bigger part of our portfolio maybe 10, 15 years ago than it is now. And we used to get called out to look at vines, vineyards that have been recently planted. And say, you know, it's a two year old vineyard, and a three year old vineyard. What do we try to do is to, you know, it's important to look at the venue and at the right time of the year. If it's potentially a virus problem, then you want to look at that vineyard in October, when you can see symptoms of virus, they may be well apparent. But the first thing to do is to try and if there's a problem in a vineyard, maybe it's just performing improperly. Is to try and link any visual performance issues with any particular physical attributes that the plant might have, or they may be associated with the site. Simply put, if you've got vines that are growing properly, than those vines that aren't grown properly, have bad graft unions, or have they been planted improperly. And they've got a J rooted root system. I tried to look at the vineyard and say split into say, three into three categories: good vine performance, bad pine vine performance, and say intermediate vine performance. And trying to correlate those different types of wind performance with either a site issue which might be a soil, irrigation, utilization, fungal pathogens, weeds. And then also compare that with just the vine itself. And this oftentimes involves sacrificing vines, but taking, digging that vine up and looking at the root system, looking at the grafting. And it's actually very easy to tell by looking at vines, whether or not the issue that you're seeing is a result of the vine being imperfect at the time of planting, or whether it's more like you know, whether it's related to the way it was planted or where it was planted.

Craig Macmillan 22:09

That is really, really fascinating. We've kind of run out of our time here, I want to thank you again, James Stamp, Stamp Associates, Viticulture Inc,. There's obviously a lot of work to continue to do. And the work that you folks are doing is wonderful. And I hope that more people will start thinking along the same lines, at the very least I hope the philosophy spreads. Is there one thing you would recommend to our listeners?

James Stamp 22:32

Yeah, I think what's it's a, it's a big one thing with with sub parts. It really is to pay attention to where your plant materials coming from. To have a really good communication with the nursery. If nothing else, sample the finished finished product for Red Blotch and Leaf Roll Three, which are the two viruses that have the biggest impact on vine performance. And the two viruses that are very easily vectored in the industry.

Craig Macmillan 22:59

That's great. Where can we find out more about you?

James Stamp 23:02

We have a website, the website is JamesStamp.net. There's all our, that we have. We've written a bunch of articles about what we do. We give presentations fairly frequently. And so some of that information is on there. And we have a website and of course, phone number, email, of course all that's there.

Craig Macmillan 23:20

Perfect. Fantastic. Well, I want to thank you again, James, and I want to thank our listeners for listening to Sustainable Winegrowing with the new team. Again, my name is Craig Mcmillan, your host and we look forward to having you download us again.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Since 2016 we've brought you the latest science and research for the wine industry. These bi-monthly podcasts help you care for the people and planet but we wanted to address that third P of sustainability: prosperity.

We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. In a recent systematic review of 30 studies, consumers reported a higher preference for ecolabel and social responsibility labels compared to nutrition labels. To help you communicate your sustainable practices with customers were going to add Marketing Tip Mondays from SIP Certified to our lineup.

These will be short, with no intro music, no-frills episodes. Just a quick overview of our latest marketing tip so you can show your customers that you share their values.

On to today's tip:

Are you talking about your sustainability efforts?

More Americans than ever are making environmentally conscious decisions when it comes to the products they buy and the businesses they support. Consumers want to support brands that share their values and take action to preserve the health of the planet. It's important to let them know that your brand protects the people and the planet!

Kyle Coots of Ancient Peaks finds that his customers love hearing about how they utilize, benefit, and protect various animal species:

Many sustainable practices involve our animal friends! So, you can talk about:

• Attracting birds of prey to keep vertebrate pests at bay
• Creating wildlife corridors that provide native species with safe passage through your property
• Attracting and releasing beneficial insects to keep down insect pests and reduce the use of pesticides
• Planting cover crops and native plants to attract those beneficial insects
• And…Bringing in sheep to graze the vineyards, thus reducing the use of tractors and machines

You can also communicate these practices by making an informational pamphlet to include in your wine club shipments or keep at the tasting room for your members to enjoy. Another great way to showcase your sustainability is with a dedicated page on your website.

On your podcast player, scroll down to the show notes to read the full article and see some great website pages dedicated to sustainability from our members.

You can also subscribe to our Marketing Tips eNewsletter to get the latest consumer trends, branding methods, and sales tactics delivered right to your inbox.

Thanks for listening to our first Marketing Tips Monday from SIP Certified. Let us know what you think of these micro podcasts by sending an email to [email protected].

• Are you talking about your sustainability efforts?
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter

With the prevalence of Leaf Roll Three, Red Blotch, and other viruses, accurate and timely detection of viruses in grapevines has never been more imperative. Alan Wei, Owner and Lab Manager at Agri-Analysis LLC in Davis California explains how his lab is using state-of-the-art technologies to find new viruses. Dr. We will explain sampling strategies to help growers screen and test larger number of grapevines with a fixed testing budget. He will also explain exciting emerging technologies such as next generation sequencing (NGS). Currently, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the widely accepted method for testing for viruses. This process tests for one gene at time. Next generation sequencing allows labs to test multiple genes at a time and potentially discover unknown viruses from a single test.

References:

• 20: Dr. Mark Fuchs | Red Blotch Virus in Grapevines
• 49: Stopping the Spread of Red Leaf Viruses
• 71: New Techniques to Detect Grapevine Leafroll Disease
• Agri-analysis LLC
• Donate: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship
• Grape Program at Foundation Plant Services
• Leafroll 3 Virus (GLRaV3) AKA Grapevine Leafroll Disease in Washington
• Next Generation Sequencing (Deep Sequencing)
• PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) Testing
• Red Blotch Virus
• SIP Certified
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

My guest today is Alan Wei, who's owner and lab manager of Agri Analysis LLC in Davis, California. Alan, thanks for being on the show.

Alan Wei 0:10

Thank you very much, Craig, for hosting me. And I'm very delighted to be here. And I want to use this opportunity to say hello to listeners as well.

Craig Macmillan 0:19

So Alan, I want to have you on the show, because I want to talk about anything that's new and exciting in the world of grapevine virology, and a lot of research and a lot of development in industry with labs like your own. So, what's what's what's happening out there, what's going on with detection of viruses these days?

Alan Wei 0:36

There is a International conference on grapevine viruses that's held every three years. So last time was 2018, in Chile. And the second, the following time was supposed to be 2021 in Greece, and unfortunately, that was canceled due to the obvious reasons, and then was supposed to be happening this year. And by the way, is not happening, and it's postponed until next year. So as a result, we have not, the researchers in this field have not been able to meet to report the latest grapevine viruses. Just to mention something that in the literature, for example, there are two or three new DNA viruses being discovered and reported. In fact, in grapevines, but their practical consequences are known. So we probably don't want to get in too much into them.

Craig Macmillan 1:33

Maybe not, but I think this is an interesting thing because for instance, red blotch, caught everybody by surprise. And so how are these new...how are these these new viruses, how are they found, if you are looking forward, you're looking for other things, what kind of technology they're using to find this new stuff?

Alan Wei 1:49

Typically, they're found by deep sequencing, also known as NGS Next Generation Sequencing. Researchers are always trying to look for the frontiers of why viruses virology by applying these methods and find this new viruses, but their practical impact needs to be validated, study to further be before we alarm growers. And red blotch was found a similar way. With the exception that the red blotch phenomena, and the disease was known to growers for years without the assay and the way the branch was first reported, or discovered through NGS that was, you know, the "wow" moment to growers. Yeah, we do now know what is causing this read leaf in my vineyard.

Craig Macmillan 2:43

Tell me a little bit more about NGS, it sounds like this is gonna be an important technology for us, this deep sequencing.

Alan Wei 2:48

Yeah, definitely. Deep sequencing is very widely used in the research community. And, when was that, in December meeting hosted by FFPS, they reported that NGS is going to be accepted by regulators like APHIS as a alternative way of testing materials coming from overseas. Which means shortened time and rapid, faster deployment of foreign important materials in in this country, or practically to growers hands. Yeah, the technology is definitely upcoming, and we're looking to possibly deploy it for routine use. We need to hear more feedback before we really do it.

Craig Macmillan 3:41

This is obviously a very complicated technology, but like in a sense, can you explain what it is?

Alan Wei 3:48

PCR is the way that accepted method in testing viruses or microbial in general. Compared to PCR, which tests one gene at a time, NGS would allow you to test multiple genes at a time. Because through the use of small, small redundant primers, which amplify many sometimes millions of hundreds of millions of fragments of the gene, which can parallelize sequenced with that data, and coupled with information, analysis, informatics, you can extract new new information from your sample, including new viruses, new bacteria.

Craig Macmillan 4:38

So essentially, I've got a sample of plant material. And I run it through this NGS process, and it comes back and says, hey, there's genetic material in here that doesn't belong here. This is not grapevine, or hey, visit genetic material that's associated with some virus or something like that. And that's the flag that I get. And I get it from the whole picture. I'm not doing it like like you say gene by looking at for specific genes, I'm getting a kickback, I'm saying hey, there's there's a variety of things or whatever genes we weren't, wouldn't even thought to look for.

Alan Wei 5:10

Exactly, exactly. You're right. And then that gene can be not not only you find genes and not belong to the grapevine, which we considered as, you know, the background gene, by further analysis of that, that special gene, you can assign them to, to pathogens, basically, different types of pathogens.

Craig Macmillan 5:30

Gotcha. Yeah, that definitely speeds up the process a lot and makes it possible to catch things in finer net than we ever would have been able to do before. So that's pretty exciting.

Alan Wei 5:38

Yes, def definitely.

Craig Macmillan 5:40

Coming to red blotch, this is continues to be, you know, a very hot topic, obviously, it continues to be an issue in the field and continues to be an issue in other places. Is there anything new that we've learned regarding the Red Blotch Virus in any realm, anything about how it moves, its symptomology, new means of detection, anything like that?

Alan Wei 6:08

I have a list of articles that just simply published during the past a couple of years, and researchers from you know, several major universities have really dived deep into the physiology, the virology, their impact on wine quality, in aspect of, of a rather large virus. They're really fascinating. From a practical standpoint, though, the progress has been less because what was reported to us few years ago remain the same, which which you know, very well. Which means rogueing, you know, rogueing your infected vines as aggressively as possible. Sourcing for clean materials as diligently as possible to prevent any viruses infecting material being planted. And once they do present in your vineyard take them out as quickly as possible. And also, although we know the Threecornered Alfalfa Hopper is the vector for red blotch. And folks don't recommend you spray against this particular insect because it is not a very efficient transmitter of the virus. Grapevine is not its preferred host. So those information were already known through talks by various speakers in the past.

Craig Macmillan 7:33

We were talking about spread. And this is something that is absolutely puzzling to me, in years of field checking, I had never once seen this Threecornered Alfalfa Hopper. But I have talked to people who have. And they apparently are very reclusive, they will move away from you, the signs of the damage and very subtle, they do this little kind of girdling thing in the leaves. I just feel like there's just kind of be another vector. I mean, just I just feel to kind of be another vector. I mean, is there is there anything new in that world? I mean, we've identified the one but it seems kind of mysterious. And I'm thinking about the spread at the Russell Ranch, that finish and plant services ranch where we've not only identified it, but they were able to see that was spreading, attributed to the Threecornered Alfalfa Hopper, correct me?

Alan Wei 8:19

I completely agree with you. Yeah, we don't see too many of our tree hoppers in the field. Yet spread in Russell Ranch has been phenomenal. It's more like, more exponential increase year after year, since 2018. So it is a mystery. If some of you, listeners, went to the seminar by UC Davis in early December, particularly the presentation by Professor Kent Daane, then the entomologists have been looking at a number of potential hosts. But unfortunately, they either have not been proven yet or, most of them were disproven to be a potential host. So we're still in that regard., virtually in the context of Russell Ranch, it is a complete mystery. You would think through the very aggressive management by FPS, you know, any presence over vectors were eliminated. And any source of vectors were eliminated. We have but yet they see this exponential growth in terms of infected vines, which, which stopped Russell Ranch from operation, basically.

Craig Macmillan 9:40

Yeah, exactly. And I was actually looking at a table for one of your publications earlier today, and it looks like it went from zero to exponential like there was no nothing was detected for a couple of years or two. Then blammo! And I've been thinking about the same thing happening in other vineyards, I'm familiar with. And obviously just underlines how big of a threat red blotch is because we don't understand, you know, a lot, there's a lot we don't understand about it. So that means you got to sample. That you should rogue vines when you see them. But also you got to be sampling. Are there any is there anything new in the way of sampling protocols? Because I know that the distribution of the virus varies quite a bit between different parts of the plant different times of year and whatnot. So it's easy to miss it. What's the what's the best recommendation these days, if I wanted to test some lines, asymptomatic vines for red watch?

Alan Wei 10:31

Yeah, we still recommend growers to sample cane materials, because in our analysis, you know, relative concentration in different parts of the vine, the cane materials has highest concentration of virus tighter level. And we also suggest growers to consider combine cuttings from different vines to make a what's called a composite sample. Therefore, they can you know, cost, testing costs can be reduced, and their testing budget can be maximized. And of course, you know, the testing objectives dictate how high your sample. Sometimes growers want to test the individual vines to really zoom in to which vine is exactly is infected, that you can only do that by testing individual vines. But the composite testing gave you the first level of screening. To see if you composite ten vines into one sample, and the entire sample would be positive. But if you want to zoom in which vine, but you're gonna want to use positive so that you can take it out, then you will do individual testing after the first round over the course screen, if you will.

Craig Macmillan 11:44

Yeah, so the strategy would be basically like test the vineyard. And then if you find that something, then you drill down, and you can get it down to decide kind of what area where the individual vines are. That's a very, very smart technique. It's a really great idea. How sensitive are the detection techniques these days? So like, if I've got a if I have 10 vines out of 1000, and I sample and I sampled 10 vines, and I hit one of them, one of the infected ones, is that enough to show up in in the in the analysis?

Alan Wei 12:15

Yeah, definitely. So if there's only one out of 10 cuttings is positive, and that means practically you're diluting the by 10 times, it is very much detectable.

Craig Macmillan 12:27

Is there a lower detection limit?

Alan Wei 12:28

Yeah, when there's a theoretical detection limit, and then there's a practical detection limit. If we do a back of the envelope calculation, a PCR method would allow you to detect one copy without the problem. But then of course, practically, there are other considerations such as whether you know, the one copy, you can sample that one copy into your PCR tube to begin with, because you know, if there's a one copy per microliter, and the way you want to use a two microliter in a PCR mix, you may or may not be able to transfer that one copy from a sample to the PCR tube to begin with. And even if you do, there may be potential inhibitors that present in grapevine material that could potentially influence your sensitivity as well. So there's a practical detection limit, and there's their theoretical detection limit issues. But overall, you know, we have found the red blotch detection to be not a problem, because typically the virus titer is high enough to be detected, even if you compounded multiple vines or cuttings into one sample.

Craig Macmillan 13:33

That's good. That's very, very useful, very, very useful. I would love to move on to kind of other viruses because it's red blotch is not the only game in town these days. Leaf Roll complexes and Leaf Roll viruses, there's still a problem correct?

Alan Wei 13:44

Especially Leaf Roll Three is very much that the top of our problems still and because you know the vaccine is very well known. It's very prevalent. Inoculum widespread to the percentage of vines tested positive for Leaf Roll Three that are coming through our lab is roughly about 15 percent. So Leaf Roll Three is very much prevalent. There have been some really nice talks, organized before the pandemic was by the Lodi growers group. There are some talks from including from South Africa. Recently from Red Blotch symposium where there's some presentations on Leaf Roll Three as well. So Leaf Roll Three is very much a serious problem. And growers need to be very vigilant against the Leaf Roll Three from from new planting materials to management of existing vineyards.

Craig Macmillan 14:37

So let's say I've got a vineyard and I'm seeing some symptoms. I'm seeing some red leaves or I'm seeing some bronzing or I'm seeing something, and I've looked at the nutritional situation, I've ruled out either toxicity or deficiency. So I'm not thinking hey, you know, maybe this is a virus issue. Can you take samples of vines and just bring them to a lab and say, please help me? Can you tell me what this might be? I know we just talked about the deep sequencing. Is that, I'm not gonna say that technology. But like if I brought you some material and I said this has got a problem, how would you go about diagnosing it?

Alan Wei 15:14

Oh, definitely. That's what we do every day. Most of our work is focused on helping growers find out what is possible cause of a programmatic vine in their vineyard. They will send in the samples, either individual vines or composite samples. We have a panel, what's called a combo panel that covers the 11 viruses, 11 major viruses. Leaf Roll Roll 1, 2, 3, 4, and two or three viruses, and of course, Red Blotch, and Fan Leaf, Pierce's. And then also Pinot Gris virus. That is the most frequently requested a panel. And by doing that panel, we typically find out if it's a virus issue.

Craig Macmillan 15:58

That's very useful. It's very, very good to know. In relation to grapevine viruses, or just diseases overall, what is the one thing you would recommend to the listeners that they should keep in mind?

Alan Wei 16:08

I think that you already touched on this earlier. You know, one thing is, if they see problems in the vineyard, they should consider the sample and test to validate whether they're viruses or not. And if they're considering to plant new materials, they should be very vigilant to to ask questions of the nurseries, and also do their own independent homework. And the you will be interviewing Dr. James Samp in another session. He can tell you more about how he go about sourcing for cleaning materials for his clients, which are very quality conscious.

Craig Macmillan 16:47

Yeah, we're really looking forward to that conversation, Much like I was looking forward to this one. You know, this reminds me of something. You hear the word tighter a lot. And I don't think I fully understand what it means. I know that it's important and seems to be coming up a lot. Can you explain the concept and why it's important and what it means for us practically?

Alan Wei 17:09

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this topic up. You know, you and I have been serving on AVF committee, Grant Review Committee for a number of years. And last week, we had our review meeting for this year, and the subject came up. You know, we can talk about different aspects of Red Blotch impact in wine quality, wine physiology, you know, readily and so on and so forth. If we want to contribute one single factor of all of this different symptomology, it would be the virus tighter level. The virus tighter means the number of particles in the vine. If the vine is only infected with a smaller number of particles, its response to the virus is going to be different than the vines that are infected with larger or large number of particles. In our experience, the virus level in different vines can be very much different. I'm not talking about different by you know, 50 percent, or two or three fold. I'm talking about several orders of magnitude. There is a poster right behind me, which you cannot see. But we did a measurement of three infected vines. One, with clean, non effective. Another one is chosen for medium Red Leaf symptom. Another one, it's very heavily Red Leaf symptom. And virus level, the obviously the non infected vine was zero. And then the mediumly infected vine was about one or 200. And then heavily infected vine, was one hundred thousand in relative copy numbers. So this tells you that you know, this virus kinda level concentration level in the vine, really affect symptomology as well as the vine performance and the barrel quality and obviously, eventually, wine quality. If we read the scientific literature, lots of studies report Red Blotch positive, Red Blotch negative, they did not talk about the virus tighter level. That's why we were so glad to see last week one of the research proposes to study the virus tighter level on different aspects of vine physiology and berry quality. I just think it was so so so important because the virus tighter will make it make a huge difference.

Craig Macmillan 19:39

So we may be moving from a world of infected or not, to not, to more sick, less sick.

Alan Wei 19:47

Yes, absolutely right. That is actually how we protect ourselves against the human viruses as well. You know, our vaccine does not completely protect us from infection. But it does protect us from viruses being propagated in high numbers in our body. Therefore, our symptoms of the infection in the individual is much less. And the ability for that individual to infect others are much less. Simply because of the lower virus tighter level in an infected person and similarly is true in grapevines.

Craig Macmillan 20:24

So plants and animals are obviously very different organisms and where an animal has an immune system plants do not, they do not have an immune defense system. Is that correct?

Alan Wei 20:35

Yes, you're right, correct. But they do have basic defense system against foreign organisms. One of them is the RNAi system. So speaking of that, you know, the simple symptomology in response to Red Blotch, and most of it is a total response, as a result of virus infection. The RNAi defense system gets activated. For example, the accumulation of the sugar of the raisin should be gradually, in a normal process, will be gradually moving towards the berries. But in Red Blotch, in fact, in vines, they are accumulated in leaves. Not moving toward the sugars. And the same for anthocyanins. That's why we see this red leaf. And those red color should be you know, in the berries, but they're not. They get stuck together, accumulating in leaves. It's fascinating. Unfortunately, we are still at the beginning of understanding all of this. Some reports are gradually coming out.

Craig Macmillan 21:40

And so I want to make sure that I understand kind of how this works. So there's a grapevine that becomes infected. However way. The virus is very, very tiny bits of genetic material. Unlike, unlike a bacteria, which has a cell wall. Viruses don't have that they're just genetic material. The plant recognizes that somehow. And then RNA is the material that is produced from genes, the genes or have a have a sequence and then when that is reproduced that goes out into the world as RNA. Is that right?

Alan Wei 22:17

Yes, the RNA is inside the host. And in response to a virus infection. And the defense mechanism get activated, which involves what is called enzymes. These RNA into smaller pieces, typically 20 nucleotide long. And they are, they are the what's called the interference RNA, or RNAi which inhibit the host from propagation inside the plant.

Craig Macmillan 22:48

This is just, we need to wrap up for time, but I just have been thinking about this for years. And that is, where do these viruses come from? Where, how do they, how do they show up? What are these plant viruses? What? Are they jumping from other plants as a mutation of one into another? Or...do we know? Do I have any idea where these things come from? Because it seems like it's not just a question of finding it. Seems it's got to come from someplace.

Alan Wei 23:14

Yeah, that's that's a really good question. I you know, you have biology, you have a load viruses, and obviously, RNA. Some viruses are readier to evolve, to change, to mutate. And that's why we see so many different mutants in the COVID virus family. And this is Red Blotch, is a DNA base virus, which have shown less mutation. And so far, we only seen two mutants, two clay types. And they practically they don't have much difference. As far as the, you know, the origin and the evolution. We need to have folks like Mark Fuchs to answer that.

Craig Macmillan 23:55

At Cornell. Well, that's fantastic. That's that's our future. That's where, that's where we're going. Well, I think we've covered everything. Where can people find out more about you?

Alan Wei 24:03

We have a website, agri-analysis.com. And then they could call us or email us anytime. We're here to help growers to build a better and clean vineyard so that they can make the best wine possible for the for their clients. Yes, sorry, Craig for the background noise. I think folks who are preparing samples as we speak.

Craig Macmillan 24:26

I want to thank you Alan, our guest today has been Alan Wei, Owner and Lab Manager at Agri-analysis, David California. Thanks so much. This is really fascinating conversation.

Alan Wei 24:35

Thank you very much Craig for hosting me. Continue to the great job. I'm so glad you're back at the Vineyard Team. You guys. You guys are wonderful team and doing great job. I'm very pleased to be here.

Craig Macmillan 24:44

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Vine Mealybug (VMB) is a challenging pest in many vineyards. Growers are increasingly incorporating biological control into their Integrated Pest Management programs by releasing Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps. Brett Chandler, President and General Manager at Associates Insectary explains how these two beneficials help manage VMB populations.

The Mealybug Destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri) is a predator beetle. It feeds on eggs and small stages of VMB. The Anagyrus Wasp is a parasite. It lays eggs inside the Mealybug. The challenge with the wasp is that they are very susceptible to many chemicals and require more specialized conditions to be effective.

Brett describes how to monitor for both Mealybug and beneficials, when and how often to release the insects, the best release methods, and how to pair beneficials with chemical control.

• References:
• 26: Controlling Mealybug Vectors of Grapevine Viruses
• 119: Vine Mealybug 101: Species Identification, Lifecycle, and Scouting to Create an IPM Program
• An Important First Step in Biocontrol: Don't Kill the Good Insects
• Associates Insectary
• Beneficial organisms for vine mealybug control
• Donate to the Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship
• Anagyrus vladimiri (formerly pseudococci)
• Mealybug Destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri)
• Natural enemies of Pseudococcus mealybugs
• SIP Certified
• Sustainable and Organic Control of Vine Mealybug in Vineyards: Two Growers, Two Approaches
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022
• Vine Mealybug Management- UCIPM

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

And with us today is Brett Chandler, president and general manager of associates and secretary in Santa Paula, California. And thanks for being here.

Brett Chandler 0:07

Thank you for having us Craig.

Craig Macmillan 0:10

You have been in the world of biological control for a long time. And you have seen a lot of trends and a lot of different approaches and a lot of different paths. And the pest that I want to talk about today is vine mealybug on winegrapes, specifically, and I'm very interested in the bio control strategies that people are employing and how they're doing it and how successful they're turning out to be. And some of the advantages of taking a biocontrol approach.

Brett Chandler 0:35

Well, it's actually an integrated approach, where you integrate your chemicals, as a last resort, your cultural practices as a first mainline, and then most importantly, monitoring the insects, both the good and the bad, and keeping a good track on what's happening in the vineyard. And it's much easier than most people think,

Craig Macmillan 0:57

You know, I want to shift to that one point there right away as as one of the challenges is you have to measure to manage, right, that's a common saying. And with beneficial insects, one of the challenges that I always found was how to monitor beneficial insects. I was a field checker for a long time, and I'd find lots of pests, but I couldn't find the beneficials. But we had reason to believe that they were part of the ecosystem, you know, populations would go up and down. And, you know, what recommendations do you have for any particular organism, maybe Cryptolaemus ? For monitoring what the populations are like?

Brett Chandler 1:30

Cryptolaemus, the organism itself is pretty standout, it's pretty obvious. But when it's feeding among the mealybugs, it's very easy to mistake because it's a mimic, it looks just like the mealybugs, and it can be working among there in numbers that you don't notice, unless you really take the time to look at it. What you're going to find with, say Cryptolaemus feeding is you'll find empty egg masses, where you'll see the white fluffy egg mass where the mealybug normally produces it young, but they're actually empty. And that you come to find is easier to recognize, the more often you see it. It's not that technical, but it is something you need to recognize. And through repetition, it's very doable for most most farm employees.

Craig Macmillan 2:14

And again, that's a combination of recognizing the insect itself and also recognizing the evidence that the insect has been there. Because oftentimes, that's what we're looking at is we're looking at the indirect evidence, you know, I should mention, I just dived right in. So the Cryptolaemus montrouzieri is the mealybug destroyer, and is a predator, is that correct?

Brett Chandler 2:34

Correct. It's a predator as opposed to the Wasp, which are parasites, which lay their eggs inside the mealybug. The Cryptolaemus beetle actually feeds on the eggs and consumes mass quantities of the eggs and smaller stages of the mealybugs. It's a it's a predator like any other that is not attached to any one stage, but feeds at all stages available to consume.

Craig Macmillan 2:58

Tell me a little bit about predators. I mean about parasites next.

Brett Chandler 3:01

The parasites, they're a very unique creature. They're highly specialized, they will only feed on one or two species where they can find and lay their eggs. Only the females do the feeding, the males do no feeding, they simply breed and provide no control. They are also very susceptible to many chemicals that the beetles or other predators may be less susceptible to. They also are very host specific. In other words, if there's not enough of the pest around, they won't find it and they may starve. If there's too many, they may be repelled, or they don't like them at that high density. So they're a very, very specific tool for a very specific circumstance. But broadly, the need to be used in only specific locations and times of year because they're they're quite delicate.

Craig Macmillan 3:55

You mentioned feeding. I thought the parasitoid wasps just lay their egg in the adult. And then it was the larva yes that had hatched out that does the damage. Is that right?

Brett Chandler 4:08

Well, actually, it does both. It's called Host feeding. And host feeding occurs in some cases where they're not getting enough protein. And they may feed on one because they'll find a mealybug and if it's too small or too large, they won't lay their eggs on it. But they may kill it by feeding on it or merely annoying it. Actually the Asian citrus psyllid parasitoid tamarixia, it kills twice as many by feeding than it does actually laying eggs.

Craig Macmillan 4:34

There you go, that it's fantastically interesting. If I'm trying to monitor for the wasps. How do I go about doing that? Because they're tiny.

Unknown Speaker 4:42

Very, very difficult. But again, early season, they're going to be laying their eggs inside the smaller mealybug and it's very difficult to find but once the first generation has passed, and the adult Wasp has emerged from what we call the mummy, where the egg has crawled out and become an adult fed on the mealybug. And emerged by chewing a hole just like a chick, choose a hole in a chicken egg, you see that characteristic round hole in the mealybug pupa. And that tells you that an Anagyrus adult emerge from that pupa.

Craig Macmillan 5:16

When we think of pest monitoring, and we think of densities, and we count or we quantify somehow, and then we come up with changes over time. Maybe we do our timings or pesticide timings, maybe based on that or decisions, whether we use pesticides at all based on that. What are the ways of measuring density? And what kinds of density measures do we use and thresholds to use for deciding Yes, this is really working well. Or maybe I need to do an augmentative release.

Brett Chandler 5:44

Well, for both of these, this is not an established what classic biological control where you release once and allow it to come on. The insect and the Wasp with the mealybug have what's called a dynamic equilibrium where it takes them time to bring the population down. And so that time may be too long, where the grape clusters are infested with the mealybug. And you don't allow that to happen. So you use the technique called an inundated release, where you release many more than the natural population would be in hopes of bringing down the climbing population because the key to control is actually the second generation of these insects that are released whether wasp or beetle, not the first generation. A wasp can lay 100 to 150 eggs, a beetle can lay up to 400 eggs. So that's 400 times the control in the second generation than the first.

Craig Macmillan 6:39

And how do we distribute these in the field? What's the what's the method by which both the beetle and the Wasp are introduced?

Brett Chandler 6:46

Many methods can be used. Drones are much more popular now and being used. The drone pilots are quite quite adept at getting them where they need to be when they need to be. We work with companies like Parabug, who are quite familiar with working with the beetles and depositing them quite a bit in the Central Valley forests and other growing locations and the Wasp as well. Hand releasing can if you have a clumped distribution, where you only have pockets, hand release is probably better if you have it broadly where the vine mealybug is broadly throughout the vineyard, a drone is helpful. But drones can be expensive to come for just five or 10 acres, you need to get a large acreage to make it effective where several neighbors get together and the neighboring vineyards all working together to allow it to happen. Drone pilots have to travel, their time. So to be cost effective, you need a larger acres for the drone. But at the same time, you need manpower available to release by hand as well.

Craig Macmillan 7:43

So for dropping a beetle, we're dropping as an adult?

Brett Chandler 7:48

Yes, we ship the beatles as adult their wings and they can fly. So when they come out, they'll drop a little and start flying and working towards the vine. And settle on the line, if there's any mealybug in the area, they will immediately be olfactory stimulated to search for them. They smell the mealybug and that's one of the driving things that attracts them and keeps them in the vineyard. Feeding as long as the population is is active.

Craig Macmillan 8:49

Is that true for the Wasp as well?

Brett Chandler 8:49

The Wasp is more of a solitary searcher, they like very small numbers when the vine mealybug are just emerging from under the bark or maybe on the edge. When high numbers of vine mealybug come out, they unfortunately attract the ants and the ants are the downfall of the Anagyrus. Anagyrus goes from very effective to about 2% effective when the ants are active in the in the vineyards. It is a big limiting factor of theirs. Whereas the Beatles because of their mimicry, they even smell like the mealybugs, and the ants will ignore the juveniles. Once the adults have laid the eggs, the ants will ignore them. And they can feed and control the mealybug with no disturbance from the ants.

Craig Macmillan 8:55

Interesting. Is there an advantage to using both types of organisms?

Brett Chandler 8:59

You can if you're properly timed in high numbers mid season, the beetles are definitely better because they're more effective. As far as bringing down high numbers and a little more tolerant of active spray programs. If you're using mating disruption that works very well. A recent study showed that beetle feeding is actually stimulated by the odors of mealybugs by the female pheromone and it actually stimulates their feedings. So it not only collaborates but it's actually a synergistic effect if you're using pheromone systems like the CheckMate or something like that. And if you're using trapping, that also helps you to time your initial releases of your parasitoids where you want to get them out there very early and as about a week after your first flight is a good time to plan to release. The problem is you don't know exactly when that is and that's the biggest problem is the lead time to get these insects grown. It's about 80 days for the Wasp and about 105 days for the beetles where we have to have those on hand and have started growing them 100 days before you need them. And that's that's the limitation, they don't have a long shelf life.

Craig Macmillan 10:10

So tell me more about the rearing, I think this is really fascinating.

Brett Chandler 10:13

The rearing system is actually rearing on live mealybug host, we rear ours on citrus mealybug, which is a similar host to vine or grape mealy bug, but not problematic if it should escape. So we have large colonies of millions of mealybugs in enclosed spaces, where we raise them to high densities, let the beetles go in the rooms, the adults lay their eggs, feed, reproduce, those 500 400 eggs hatch out, and then we harvest them out of the room, put them in bottles, and ship them to growers. And we've got about five to 10 days from harvest to use them so that they're still strong and vital. That's why we can't hold them over really from more than a week.

Craig Macmillan 10:55

So do you have like phases, you have different different populations that are kind of different stages, so that you can kind of hit the windows as you're going forward? Because otherwise you'd have everybody coming online at 105 days. That'd be like, okay, we got five days to do all the business in the world. Let's get them out there now. You must must wrap it up somehow.

Brett Chandler 11:15

Yeah, you're exactly right, we start logistics in January, and start talking to growers all the way up as far as Napa is down as far south as Delano, and everywhere in between. And if you'll notice, the vines come on at different times along that gradient as well as you run north to south. So that staggers it a little bit. But May and June are we're swamped. We're selling every one we can grow and working to grow more each year. So we do have to stagger them. And we do have almost 50 rearing rooms, where we have cycles coming off every couple of days. So we have fresh every couple of days. So it's continually going on a year round basis. And interesting thing this winter has been we sold tripled the number of beetles this winter than we normally have. And it's just taxing our staff to the maximum. So unfortunately, this year, we are not going to be rearing the Anagyrus Wasp, we simply don't have the manpower for it this year. I believe there's another source for those that's available. But the beetle demand is so strong, we're doubling our population from last year and thinking we're going to need to double it again to make it available because demand is so high.

Craig Macmillan 12:24

So this is really been adopted?

Brett Chandler 12:25

Very much very much. We've been doing it for about 10 years up in Napa and about eight years in the Central Valley and then scattered through that in the Central Coast. And it's becoming more and more driven by the the customers the end customers that want to see a sustainability component to the grapes going into the system. And also a big problem shifting towards the Beatles is the big problem has been for the Anagyrus has been the loss of Lorsban. Chlorpyrifos was actually a very good IPM tool that could be sprayed at the base of the vines to keep keep the ants at bay and allow the Wasps and the Beatles to do a better job. And with this loss, and not a great replacement on the horizon, people are having to use more and more than they did at the past. I mentioned about the Anagyrus dropping off, it drops about 75% and effectiveness when ants are present. So as ants come up, you need many more Anagyrus to get the same concentration in the past. And same thing with the beetles which were treating a lot more acres than we had but also more per acre.

Craig Macmillan 13:32

So there's no overwintering of either of these organisms?

Brett Chandler 13:37

There actually is. As far up as as in Tracy and Lodi area, we've had some overwinterings in most winters. The problem is the numbers are so low, that it's hard to get them going in the spring. You kind of have to kickstart it, but we do get carryover particularly along the coast, we get a lot more carryover. But the wasp, the populations dropped so low, it's very, very difficult to get much carryover with that. So seasonal inundative releases, which is what we've used in citrus for almost 100 years. We've been growing these beetles here for just about 95 years, and they're a great supplement to your pest control. You can't expect classic, practical,complete biocontrol in a crop that is not a naturally occurring ecosystem. There's not an ecosystem somewhere with 100 acres of perfectly uniform vines all coming in at the same time.

Craig Macmillan 14:27

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And so this is not a refugia issue. It's not like oh, if I just had the right you know habitat for them they would establish and hangover it's that isn't that's not really a strategy that would work either populations in place.

Brett Chandler 14:42

In most areas you can get a few but the refugia is, can be problematic. They like soft bodied pests, the beatles particular and the mealybug you're not going to get mealybug to produce over the winter they go underground or under the bark so there's simply no food available for the wasp. But the beetle will feed on many soft bodied insects, reproduce on several species of mealybugs. But truthfully, there's not much activity during the winter months, and they have to kind of settle down and it takes them a while to get up to numbers and the pests being, taking advantage of that get jump started in the spring. So if you could get caught up, but you may be on your economic threshold, and they may be in your bunches by the time you get that done.

Craig Macmillan 15:29

What is the integration of cultural control, cultural practices, biological control, chemical control? So the, you know, the classical IPM framework. What do you see growers doing in terms of that integrated approach that's working well, not just for the control the mealybug, but it's also making it possible for these other practices to work well?

Brett Chandler 15:51

Well, the control of the ants through either minor cultivation, or banding with sticky, sticky materials on on the poles and on the lines to exclude the ants. Cultural practices as the're pruning to flag where it was a problem last year, you got those black vines, you've got sooty mold residues so that it combines to catch your eye particularly at this time of year at budbreak. And early in the season. flag that. That's going to be where you're going to see your activity first. And you can have a reward to your pruners to your irrigators to weed people working. Give them the flag and they come back and show you how many they did and you buy them lunch, something like that. Anyone can notice the black stains, you don't have to be highly educated. Then you concentrate your scouting on those black spots rather than having to canvass the entire vineyard. Where the black spots are is where you're gonna see the problem emerge first. Later in the season for spread, you'll have to spend more time. But that's a good economy of time, is to allow everyone that goes through the vineyard to have a part in monitoring.

Craig Macmillan 16:59

And then I can target what I do, whether it's a release or, or whatever. How to pesticides come into play here? Because I think there's always a conflict between biological control agents and pesticides.

Brett Chandler 17:12

We found a good solution in the citrus which seems to work in the grapes just as well. Particularly with newer products like Movento, Spirotetramat, very soft on beneficials, goes into the tree provides long control, goes into the vine provides long control, is not particularly disruptive, has very low surface residue. We found the mealybug and the Cryptolaemus aren't too disrupted by sulfur sprays either. And they do pretty well there. Abeamectin sprays for mites seem to do pretty well. Some of the plant growth regulators though can be quite hard on the beetles. Like Esteem. They will impact them as well. So that is something although it's considered safe for parasitoids, it's not safe for predators. And so we want to watch those when you combine those. Imidacloprid doesn't seem to do too much of a problem with when that's chemigated in or even applied on on a surface surface treatment. We just tried to time the releases to say a week after after your application of something like that, or a few days before a sulphur spraying. By timing it allows the beatles to find it, lay their eggs, which they will almost immediately, same with the wasps. Having something blowing dust. Even if it is just sulfur dust is highly disruptive, no one would want to have a bag of dust blown on them. And so just the disruption breaks down their activity. So giving them a few days of free time to get used to the odors, detect the mealybug find them do their feeding or their egg laying before you have to pass through again. So the calibration and the timing and the synchronization between your scheduled sprays is is it's usually not too hard to do but it does take a little forethought.

Craig Macmillan 18:53

You might have mentioned this but I'm not positive, we're talking about a release in the spring. They're not additional releases after that, it's a one release per year.

Brett Chandler 19:02

Actually not. The Anagyrus are so expensive to rear the high numbers aren't practical and so many are lost for various reasons that they release about every two weeks up to eight times a year. The Cryptolaemus we do an initial release at a base number and then a follow up release if it's if it's needed by by scouting and and about 50% of the time it's needed. So Cryptolaemus maybe once maybe twice, antivirus up to eight times. So there's a lot more work involved in the Anagyrus. So and they're more expensive. So you want to make sure you're using an expensive tool like that to its best effect. So if you have ants, Anagyrus are not recommended.

Craig Macmillan 19:45

Now we talked about the fact that overwintering isn't really practical, but what things can I do during the season to encourage protect, promote the beneficial insects that I've released?

Brett Chandler 19:54

Very simply the some of the broadleaf plants, some of the lupins and things like that will, if allowed to grow near the vines, will offer a little alternate nectar and a little food if the numbers are getting low for the beetles. The wasps, they will host feed. Like I say they're much more delicate, and it's hard to keep them around. That's why the constant releases during the year because of multiple overlapping generations, they're only feeding on about four days out of 30. Of a 30 day lifecycle for the mealybug, only four days that mealybug appropriate to be stung. So trying to get that you're releasing constantly to provide some loss there at every stage of the life. So that one wasp finds its mealybugs every couple of weeks. The main thing is to keep the disruption of the harsh chemicals to a minimum, or at least timed and coordinate with your insectary. The other thing is coordinating with your insectary and getting to know your supplier. Ask them do you have you know, customers already booked for this time. You know, historically, when when you've first seen it each year. You know historically, when your bunches normally close up, and when you want to get it in there. Follow the the history of vineyard and have it in your mind when you speak to them and give them a target window as early as possible. And they will work with you. You may have to shift a week or two, like I said one way or the other because of availability, but we're constantly expanding production to try and supply everyone as needed. But it's the growth of this. It's grown 30 40% In the last two years in demand, and it's just quite a quite a tough talent to find people that know how to grow insects to hire them. There's not a job board you put up and say, recruiting insecr rearing people, come on over.

Craig Macmillan 21:37

What is your experience? What are growers telling you? This sounds like this is a grower to grower explosion. Talking to people and I'm like. So what are you hearing back from growers that's making them so excited or making them really recommend this to their neighbors?

Brett Chandler 21:52

It seems that they see results. But it's very difficult to quantify an exact percentage, but they're they're satisfied with it. We had one grower who started out and promised he would buy from us if we wouldn't tell anyone he was using them. He thought it was a competitive advantage. And he wanted to keep it a secret from his neighbors because he thought he had one up on them.

Craig Macmillan 22:16

Meanwhile, the pressure of spread from across the fence line continues. I can see that I get you know I can I can see the mindset there. It makes sense. It makes sense. That's one thing I've always loved about this industry, and I've learned about Ag in general is how kind of collaborative it is. Insane things in the wine side, people ask me, you know, oh, or you know, how cutthroat is it? And it's like, well, there is competition, but also everybody's in the same boat. We're all facing the same problems. It's all the same time. You know, I mean, we're kind of a community regardless. With that idea, are you finding, is the spread of information, is this via meetings? Is it just one to one? Is there press stories that have made a difference? I, I'm just really curious about this as a model for other kinds of sustainable technologies.

Brett Chandler 23:01

It I think it's a combination of both. But the onside demonstration, the Lodi, grape growers have have had onsite demonstrations of drone releases for everyone to see. Things like the the Ag Expo, it's been going on and talking about that Kena Daane's been talking about it for several years. But now the practicality of it is really coming forward because people were scared that it was a lot more work. And it's not really. But it is it is a different kind of work, and it is practicable. But it does produce good results. And that's why the growers are coming back year after year to us and buying more each year. I don't think they'd be wasting their money if if they didn't think it was effective. And it seems to be that they're quite satisfied with with the results they're seeing in all aspects of it.

Craig Macmillan 23:48

Are there new things on the horizon? Or things that have just kind of happened recently that are exciting? Are there other organisms that have potential or there are other methods that are starting to show us potential? Do we have new information about the fine mealybug we didn't have before?

Brett Chandler 24:02

You'll have to talk to Dr. Daane about that. Kent knows all the details. I know he's working very hard on it. And he has been for many years. As I say, I think the drone technology and the practicality of the drones is making it more practical to people. Because whether it's an insect or a vineyard, you don't have people standing around, you're usually short handed, especially now. And the drones allow them to also to cooperate them with themselves and their neighbors and work among themselves to have the drone come in and do large scale releases. And that frees up the labor and they may take a few and do some a couple spot releases, but overall they can do broad releases and introduce them to an area, frankly the way we have done with the scale parasites in the citrus for 65 years. And the innondative, area wide approach brings it down and tends to expand overall control. While it's hard to tell on an individual vineyard block or orchard the overall regional control, you'll see it effectively as the numbers begin to drop. As long as we can keep good control of the ants. The ants are a plague in the citrus as well and a huge problem for us. And we use the Lorsban as well and founded quite an effective IPM tool, and we're looking forward to some useful replacement on the near horizon.

Craig Macmillan 25:18

Is there a biological control agent for their Argentine Ant?

Brett Chandler 25:22

They've tried. The thing is a super colony, believe it or not, in other parts of the world, two colonies from 50 yards apart, will fight each other. But most of Western California is one super colony of Argentine Ants that cooperate and feed. They actually keep the Fire Ants out. Where they have controlled them. The Fire Ants come in and they reduce the control and the Fire Ants are decimated by the Argentine Ants in Southern California.

Craig Macmillan 25:49

That's interesting. That's really, really interesting. Well, I want to thank you for being our guest today. This has been great, a lot of great information and some kind of hope, I feel. It's exciting when we get biological control success. At the beginning of the philosophy, like you said, going back 100 or more years ago to classical approach, we had a couple of successes that were really, really exciting. And then people kind of discovered how difficult it was. And I really appreciate folks like you and the rest of the community that keep sticking to this idea, and finding ways to make it work, because it's a fantastic strategy, and it has its place may not be perfect, but man, it makes a huge difference. And I think that's really great. I want to appreciate that. So I want to thank our guest, Brett Chandler, President and General Manager of Associates Insectary for being on the show today. I look forward to seeing you again. It's been a few years before just bumping into you in person again.

Brett Chandler 26:40

I hope so. Craig, look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Efficient Vineyard Project uses three phases to help growers improve their farming techniques; Measure, Model, and Manage. Terry Bates, Senior Research Associate at Cornell University in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences and Director of the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory, has worked with the Efficient Vineyard Project since 2015 to collect and interoperate spatial data. He knew that growers were aware that variation in the vineyard was important to manage, but they did not know how to work with spatial data. The three phases create a foundation to make data work for each grower.

The first phase, Measure, looks at how growers go about collecting data, what sensors they have, and how that data is being collected. The second phase is to Model the collected data to get the best information. And the third and final phase is to Manage through the mechanization of tasks. The program has even released a free My Efficient Vineyard software to make this process even more accessible to growers.

References:

• 55: Using Technology to Schedule Irrigation
• 77: Vineyard Pruning Technology
• Donate to the Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship
• Efficient Vineyard
• High Resolution Vineyard Nutrient Management
• Mechanical Pruning in Concord with Dr. Terry Bates (Video)
• SIP Certified
• What is the Efficient Vineyard Project?

Get More

Subscribe on iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

If weeds aren't a top priority in your pest control program, maybe they should be. John A. Roncoroni, Emeritus UC Cooperative Extension Weed Science Farm Advisor and UCIPM affiliate advisor in Napa County discusses his specialty; weed management in California's Coastal and Foothill premium winegrape growing regions. He covers why weeds should play a more important role in pest control programs, knowing which weeds you have on your property, fire mitigation, and the toughest weeds to control today so you can bolster your weed management program. References:

• 4/29/2022 Steel in the Field Tailgate Steel in the Field Tailgate
• 70: Science and Controversy of Glyphosate | Dr. Scott Steinmaus (podcast)
• John Roncoroni
• MAINTAINING LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT: Herbicide-resistant weeds challenge some signature cropping systems
• Napa County UCCE
• University of California Integrated Pest Management Integrated Weed Management
• Vineyard Floor Management: Steel in the Field (video)

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Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Dr. Tarah Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Soil Microbiology at Washington State University. In this interview, Tarah discusses how the plant microbiome mirrors the human gut, the ways in which soil microorganisms can alter the bioavailability of micronutrients and metals for plants, why plants in alkaline soils can be deficient in iron when the soil is not, if cover crops can improve soil microbial communities, and what is next for her research.

Tarah's research emphasis is on linking the function and phylogeny of the soil microbiome, specifically with regard to the interactions and impacts on metal bioavailability and soil health. Whether the context is micronutrient availability in the rhizosphere, which confers plant growth promotion and crop enhancement, or in the context of contaminated systems where bioremediation and bioaugmentation are the best options to remediate heavy metals polluted sites, the soil microbiome is key in these biotransformations. Understanding the consortia of organisms and the mechanisms involved drives the work done in her lab with a wide array of biochemical and molecular techniques.

References:

28: Understanding Soil Health (Podcast)

53: Producing Compost and Carbon Sequestration (Podcast)

106: What? Bury Charcoal in the Vineyard? (Podcast)

113: Microbial Inoculants for Soil Health (Podcast)

Digging into Soil Bacteria and Chlorosis

Floor Management for Soil Health

SIP Certified

Soil Microbiology & Agricultural Sustainability | Tarah Sullivan (Podcast)

Tarah Sullivan, Assistant Professor of Soil Microbiology, Washington State University

Vineyard Team Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship

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Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Greg Pennyroyal of Wilson Creek Winery and Vineyards was looking for soil moisture systems and found that the products available in the market were all expensive, proprietary systems that did not meet the needs of small block Temecula vineyards.

He partnered with Reinier van der Lee, CEO of Vinduino, to reverse engineer the technology to develop a product that would give the same results for a fraction of the cost. They have expanded this project over the last five years to collect more and more data that can improve irrigation decisions. Today, they can connect the dots between SAP analysis and soil analysis and continue to add more variables. Over collecting data now will allow them to see what things are most actionable so they can develop a system that is economical and implementable for all blocks.

Because there is more to irrigation than how much water is put on, the next phases of research will look at how water holding capacity, organic matter, and biological capacity at vineyards under different farming methods like Regenerative Agriculture impact irrigation efficiency.

References:

• 115: Examining Plant Nutrient Mobility with SAP Analysis
• 121: Regenerative Agriculture (Rebroadcast)
• Greg Pennyroyal
• Irrigation Best Management Practices
• Kind Harvest
• Reinier van der Lee
• SIP Certified
• Tailgates
• Vinduino
• Wilson Creek Winery & Vineyards

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Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

There are numerous tools and technologies to improve irrigation efficiency but by looking at grower demographics, we can better predict which growers will implement best management practices. Plus, we can learn how to educate all growers to improve adoption.

Nicholas Babin, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences at California Polytechnic State University, conducted a two-year study to assess Paso Robles California AVA grape growers' thoughts around climate change adaptation, irrigation efficiency, practice adoption, and SGMA.

SGMA, or Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, is a California state policy aiming to bring over drafted groundwater basins into sustainability in 20 to 30 years. Agencies are established in sub basins like Paso Robles to establish groundwater management strategies for their region. After discovering that the adoption of water management strategies like soil and plant tissue monitoring devices, distribution uniformity tests, and flow meters, was lower for smaller vineyards under 40 acres, Nicholas and his team looked at other demographics to determine which factors most influence adoption of best management practices. By evaluating growers' income, rainfall, education, vineyard size, and other influences, the research found that the most important factor in predicting the adoption of water efficiency management practices is participation in the SIP Certified program for sustainable winegrowing.

Nicholas also covers the Cal -Adapt tool to predict the impact of climate change on specific vineyards and gives a sneak peek at his latest research on the efficacy of carbon farming programs.

References:

• 116: Using Nudge Theory to Improve Irrigation Practices
• 122: Preserving Agriculture Land to Combat Climate Change
• Cal-Adapt
• Cal-Adapt Tutorial
• California Climate & Agriculture Network (CalCAN)
• Nicholas Babin, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences at California Polytechnic State University
• Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
• SIP Certified
• State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP)
• Vineyard-specific climate projections help growers manage risk and plan adaptation in the Paso Robles AVA

Get More

Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.