National Grape Research Alliance

Weekend reading: Researchers seek the help of citizen scientists to track the emergence of billions of Brood X cicadas. They're anticipated to emerge now through mid-May after 17 years underground in 15 Mid-Atlantic states. Click to see if you're in a Brood X state!

Monarch Tractor debuted its (and the world’s) first fully electric, driver-optional, smart tractor last week at Wente Vineyards. It has 10 cameras on board, plus capabilities for machine learning and data analysis, and removes "emissions equal to 17 cars each from vineyards.

Two scientists who've made significant contributions to grape research have been awarded honors from The American Phytopathological Society. Congrats to Marc Fuchs, 2021 APS Fellow, and Rodrigo Almeida, 2021 Lee M. Hutchins Award. Respectively, they are known for their discoveries in plant virology and virus disease ecology, and biology and epidemiology of X. fastidiosa (responsible for the spread of Pierce's disease in grapevines) and grapevine leafroll disease.

How do you explain dormancy to non-growers? What does lag phase look like? Now you can use this "Grapevine Annual Cycle" from the California Table Grape Commission (Grapes From California) to illustrate and explain the stages of grapevine and grape development.

What impact does smoke have on grapes and grapevines? Three UCCE San Joaquin Valley extension specialists give their observations from the smoky, ashy 2020 season. One interesting datapoint of many: During these smoke events, depending on the thickness of smoke, sunlight on the canopy was cut by as much as 80%, to well below the levels of photosynthetic radiation grapevine leaves need.

Many believe that global temperatures today don't exceed those of the Holocene era. But a team led by Rutgers University reconstructed the temperature record, finding that today's temps are the warmest of the past 10,000 years and affirming the role of greenhouse gases in climate change.

Last week, the Ohio Department of Agriculture confirmed that a population of spotted lanternfly was found near Steubenville. One was dead; five live specimens were captured.

Ever wonder what microshoot tip therapy is and how it's used? Here, UC Davis Foundation Plant Services' Sue Sim explains its use in virus elimination. Basically, (it) takes the smallest growing tip you can manage to excise out of a plant and then have it grow into a whole new plant. During that process, because viruses do not infect cells as fast as they grow in the shoot tip, most of the time you lose the virus infection in the process.

Weekend reading: When it comes to dressing up for Halloween, treehoppers have the most extravagant, bizarre costumes in the insect world. Of the more than 3,000 known species of the sap sucker, 71 of them, including this evil-looking Cyphonia, have evolved to look like a stinging, biting predator.

Our October newsletter is out! Click for news on how climate change is impacting grapegrowing, what the research needs are for grape smoke exposure in the West and, in our spreadsheet of funded grape research in the US, new info on the USDA-ARS investment in science for the grape and wine industry. Plus, today is last call for Rich Smith Award nominations! Click here to nominate a leader: bit.ly/36BNVez

Last Saturday, the Washington State Department of Agriculture located a nest of Asian giant (or "murder") hornets. It was the first nest to be found after nearly a year of individual sightings of the venomous insect. A scent lure designed by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists played a key role. The awesome photo comes from this New York Post story: https://bit.ly/3mDioh1

The new National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded WIFIRE Firemap features a satellite image map overlaid with terrain and access roads, which firefighters can use in simulations to strategize exactly where to send crews to get ahead of fast-moving blazes in practice for the real thing. It currently shows the location and status of every active wildfire in the US. The WIFIRE team is led by Ilkay Altintas, a computer scientist at the UC San Diego in collaboration with the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

Can ozone effectively minimize--or remove--the effects of smoke exposure in winegrapes? A number of wineries are deploying different treatments, hoping for good results.

Drs. Tony Wolf and Mizuho Nita of Virginia Tech are evaluating new grape varieties to better serve the Virginia wine industry. They're seeking selections that have "really nice wine quality" and resistance to common regional diseases, making them "better adapted to the state than some of the standard varieties that are being grown now."

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s winter forecast, warmer, drier conditions will prevail across the South, and cooler, wetter conditions in the North, thanks in part to La Nina. More than 45% of the US is experiencing drought, and it's not anticipated to improve.

Weekend reading: There's only one place in the world to see this "braided cord" trellising system: the Valle de La Orotava D.O.C. in Spain.

Ever wondered how table grape growers know when to harvest green varieties? Here, the California Table Grape Commission's Ross Jones explains the subtle color changes that occur during development and the common use of refractometers to help make picking decisions. (Note: If you've never seen Grapes From California on the vine, check out this video, filmed on location in the San Joaquin Valley!)

Researchers at the UCSD - University of California San Diego are using a remote sensing radar technology called InSAR to better understand sustainable groundwater use in California's San Joaquin Valley. An interesting finding is, despite reports of high water consumption by fruit and nut crops like grapes and almonds, the crop types with the greatest rates of subsidence and groundwater use are field crops (corn and soy), pasture crops (alfalfa) and truck crops (tomatoes).

Cornell University's Terry Bates and Justine Vanden Heuvel play important parts in the NGRA-supported, SCRI-funded project on nutrition management. Terry will work with Jan van Aardt of the Rochester Institute of Technology to develop new proximal nutrient sensors that can detect deficiencies before they become visible. And Justine will develop a mechanism to combine ground-based sampling and satellite imaging to quantify nutrient deficiencies.

With women representing 44% of small farmers and 58% of them in this Utah-based study choosing Instagram as their social media platform of choice, Instagram seems to be a viable option for diversifying digital extension programming, especially for younger female farmers.