By Clint Thompson
The University of Georgia’s New Grape Growers Symposium educated potential producers about all facets of growing grapes in the Southeast. Topics ranged from variety selection, establishing a vineyard, managing pests and diseases and developing sustainable vineyard practices.
Disease management remains one of the most limiting factors of grape production in Georgia and Alabama, says Sarah Lowder, University of Georgia (UGA) viticulture Extension specialist. It is a fact all new growers must be aware.
“I think one of the components that can surprise folks is just the disease management. That certainly will be a big thing no matter where you’re growing grapes,” Lowder said. “It can be a big component, but especially like in the southeast where we have so many in the high humidity and the big summer rains that happen all the time can really create some really high disease pressure.”
Lowder highlighted a few of the diseases that grape growers must overcome every year.
“We always start talking about Pierce’s disease, just because that’s going to be a major limiting factor on choosing what kind of grapes you would grow. That’s definitely one of the big ones,” Lowder said. “On an everyday basis, it’ll, it’ll depend on what it is that you’re growing. If you’re growing a bunch grape, you’ll have to deal with, downy mildew, powdery mildew, black rot, a bunch of the other fruit rots and sour rot.
“Muscadines are a little bit easier. You don’t have quite as many to deal with, but you have a bunch of the fruit rots that you’re pretty concerned about and black rot, which can then affect the foliar canopy as well, are going to be kind of the big ones that just generally require pretty consistent management throughout the season.”