The Vineyard
(Page 4 of 5)
September/October 1975
John Vivian
We rely on the native plant's built-in vigor to carry them through disease and pest problems, and though there have been years when the crop failed, we have never lost a wild vine. The domestics are more vulnerable, though, and require attention, especially during the first two years when their foliage cover is thin and their root structures immature. Most years from mid-May into June we have a big hatch of rose chafers, skinny beetles with tan bodies, brown heads, and long, thorny legs. Hand picking for three or four days is usually effective. If not, I wrap the worst-chewed vines in plastic sheeting, leaving the top open so the vine won't toast. If the plastic "tube" thus created rises five or six feet above ground level the bugs won't try to fly over it.
RELATED CONTENT
THE HEALTHY PLATE: Recipe for pork tenderloin with roasted red grapes and thyme...
Learn about foraging for wild edible plants. Wild berries include blackberries, raspberries, dewber...
India orders all zoo and circus elephants moved to wildlife parks after animal rights outcry...
With a few grapevines, some patience and a little know-how, you can make fabulous organic wines at ...
One of the West’s oldest symphony orchestras. Almost 90 wineries. Restaurants, galleries and museum...
Our summers are seldom humid enough for mildews to be much of a problem, and being on a hillside, the orchard air drains and flows constantly, which also keeps bacterial diseases from doing much damage. Still, I make a weekly inspection, removing all shriveled or wizened fruit and pulling, then composting or burning, any leaves with a powdery white deposit or black spots.
In late summer we have always had legions of Japanese beetles, the beautifully iridescent but voracious Oriental immigrant that tends to congregate in groups on the tops of large, flat leaves, and which sticks its prickly hind legs up at you when disturbed. In a bad year the beetles can ruin both foliage and fruit of grapes, cane berries as well as several vegetables. For a while we tried hand picking the bugs, jiggling leaves so the beetles would let go, then catching them in cans half full of water with a thin layer of kerosene on top. However, since they have a considerable flying range, we would just have a new crop each morning.
A few springs ago when we expected a really good grape harvest we swallowed hard and spent over sixty dollars for a ten-pound drum of DOOM, one brand name of the milky spore disease which government scientists found in the Japanese beetle populations in a part of New Jersey some years back. Ours came from one of the firms licensed by the U.S.D.A. to make the stuff, Fairfax Biological Control Laboratory. When spread by the spoonful in a four-by-four-foot grid in cropped or mowed sod and garden soil (where the beetles lay eggs) around the home place and orchard, the disease will attack the beetles in their grub stage. It will live on in the soil, being passed from generation to generation of beetle grubs, and will slowly expand out from our place wherever the beetles go. Milky spore will never completely eradicate the beetle, simply keep it in natural check so that it won't appear in huge numbers and do serious crop damage.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
Next >>
