Pest Control for Your Vineyard Grapes

Pest control for your vineyard grapes is very important. There are some many pests out there that love vineyard grapes. You may have to deal with disease, insects, birds, or deer.

Disease

On the disease side, you may face black rot, fungus, mildew, or phomopsis cane and leaf spot. It is important to quickly asses the symptoms noted on your vineyard grapes or on your vines. Leave discoloration, leaves with a film covering, decaying grapes, and leaves with lesions are serious symptoms of disease. In many cases the solution is as simple as applying a good fungicide. However, there may be times when you need to do some special research or consult an expert about the symptoms.

Insects

Plenty of insects would love to enjoy the fruits of your vineyard. Grapes are a tasty treat for many insects. There are also the Grape Berry Moths, which prefer to lay their eggs on grapes. It is their larva that ends up being born in your berries and eating their way out, leaving webbing behind. Grape Leafhoppers, on the other hand, enjoy eating the bottoms off of your grape leaves. Fortunately, it takes an enormous number of these to do enough damage to actually damage the grapes. Japanese Beetles are a growing problem in the United States, damaging vineyard productivity. Rose Chafers are another type of beetle that can be a problem. They are large bettles that eat grapes. For the most part, your vineyard grapes will grow in large enough quantities to withstand these insect infestations, but there are times when the problem will get so out of control that you must fight back. Insecticides will generally do the job.

Birds

If you are just growing a small vineyard in your back yard, birds can completely destroy your crop of grapes. The interesting thing is that it tends to be easier to get rid of a flock of birds than a few birds. In the worst cases, you can put something over the top of your grapevines to protect the grapes. There is actually a netting made for this purpose that you can buy. It typically lasts for about 30 months, but should be taken off during cold periods to prevent ice formations on the vines. They are easy to throw over vines on a trellis.

But, a less drastic option may be some sort of scare crow or blast cannon to keep the birds from getting comfortable in your vineyard. Of course, a cannon should only be used if you live out where it won’t anger your neighbors. In addition to traditional, and less effective scare crows, you can sometimes get the desired scare results from items such as aluminum pie plates and artificial predators, such as snakes, owls, and hawks.

Deer

As you can imagine, a few deer can go through a small crop of grapes in no time. Deer tend to crave grapes in spring, when food has been scarce for a while. Using repellents based on scents such as human, coyote, soap, and dog can be effective. In general, any local animal that frightens the deer should have an effect scent to use as a repellent.
Your pest control efforts should help you get the best possible vineyard grapes.