Vintage 2015 in Some Peril

We knew that leaving the vineyard to its own resources for nearly a month unsprayed at this time of year was a gamble.
However total November rainfall was only 17mm over 5 rain days with the highest daily rate of 5mm.
We thought we had lucked out.
But in the first 12 days of December we have had 154mm with the highest daily rate of 39mm.
It has rained every day since we have been home.

So apart from the vines looking like a jungle, the conditions have been conducive to fungus attack.
And there is quite a deal of evidence of this ie.oil spots (downy mildew) on the leaves and powdery mildew on the forming bunches
The downy we can treat with a curative but the powdery is not so easy to combat. There is some evidence that if the infection is not too bad then triadimenol (Bayfidan) is worth a try.

All we need is a couple of days of dry weather to get the spray on.
The forecast is, however, not looking good.
In the meantime we are working on thinning out the shoots and getting them vertical on the trellis so any spray will be as effective as possible.