Ask Your PCA: How did winegrape growers deal with vine mealybug this year?

This year, we have had the highest pressure from vine mealybug that I have seen in the eight years that I have been here.

As far as the control of it, we need to use insecticides. A lot of guys used a systemic product through their drip systems early on and followed up later with a new foliar product that we apply directly to the leaves in May. This has given us really good control.

By using this program, growers are getting 90 to 100 percent control.

Some growers think that they don’t have vine mealybug, but they actually do have it, but it is difficult to detect. We can spend hours in a field and not find it, even when it is there; so it is more of a preventive action that needs to be taken.

Even though we treat for it, we don’t totally eradicate it, but we do keep it out of the fruit, which is our primary concern.

I think it was heavier this year because birds seem to be moving it. Also, we had more generations this year because of the warmer, drier weather.