Spraying schedule 2014

My annual spraying schedule:

Shoots 1” long: Bordeaux Mixture, then every two weeks until August
Shoots 6” long: Sulphur, then every two weeks until August

Mixes:

• 10g sulphur in 5l of water
• 100g Bordeaux mixture in 5l of water

Note: once sulphur spraying starts, mix BM and sulphur together and apply at the same time 

Did the first spray yesterday of just Bordeaux mixture, was a bit late so the next spray will commence a week and a half from now, which makes the sprays sit nicely on the weekend.  Usually I should do the first spray when shoots are 1" long, but as late pruning resulted in uneven bud burst across the vineyard I wanted to wait until the later shoots were that long.

Dates then this year, including yesterday are as follows:

21 May - BM
31 May - BM+S
14 June - BM+S
28 June - BM+S
12 July - BM+S
26 July - BM+S

21st of May required two 5l batches of spray mixture = 200g of BM.  I think the next one will need two as well (as I had some overlap), but after that it'll be three or maybe four batches to cover all the vine leaves.

Assuming a worst case of four batches for each of the remaining sprays, that makes 400g x 5 = 2Kg of BM.  Gonna have to check but I'll probably be ordering more.  I've got plenty of sulphur.

Bud burst 2014. Time to finish pruning!

Spray, Monday 24th June

Lots more leaves so used two batches of spray today

Spraying: Wettable Sulphur and Bordeaux Mixture

At time of writing, I've done two sprays two weeks apart. First was on Sunday 26th of May and the second on Monday 10th of June.

Designed to combat the powdery and downy mildew I had last year as well as maybe other diseases, I'm using a mix of 10g wettable sulphur and 100g of Bordeaux Mixture in 5l of water.  This is applied using a backpack sprayer. This amount seems to be plenty to coat all the leaves for now, it may have to be upped later once there's more foliage to spray. 

Photo from just before bud burst, so about 2-3 weeks before the first spray:

 

Hat

It's sunny, I need a new hat.

Hard pruning

Roughly half way through pruning. Cutting right back to eradicate diseased wood which bears the mildew spores. Another year without wine but a necessary procedure to fix the health of the vineyard.

Blotchy/black canes after last year's diseases