Grape Berry Moth Control in Concord Grape, 2017

This trial was set up to evaluate Venerate XC with the addition of several different adjuvants and evaluate/compare several formulations of VST-0063 against the GBM in grapes. Insecticides were applied to 26-yr-old ‘Concord’ grape vines (Vineyard 1) at the Trevor Nichols Research Center near Fennville, MI with a tractor-mounted FMC 1029 airblast sprayer calibrated to deliver 50 gpa at 2.5 mph. Plots consisted of single 42-ft long rows of vines arranged in an RCB design with four replications. Vine spacing was 6 × 10 ft, with a buffer row separating all plots. Application of test materials was made as indicated in Table 1. Regular fungicide applications of Captan, Abound, and Elite were applied to all treatments. Herbicide applications included Gramoxone. Fruit evaluations were conducted on 14 Sep and 7 Oct by inspecting 25 fruit clusters per replicate for GBM damage and are reported as the percentage of clusters damaged and number of grapes damaged per 25 clusters (or per plot). Although actual counts are presented, ANOVA was run on square-root transformed data. Transformed treatment means were analyzed using ANOVA and means separation by Tukey’s HSD at P = 0.05.

All treatments except VST-006340 LC significantly reduced the incidence of infested bunches compared with the untreated check, with Dipel and Intrepid providing the best levels of control (Table 1). Within injured clusters, all treatments lowered the severity of injury in terms of numbers of damaged fruit per cluster.

This research was supported by industry gifts of pesticides and research funding.