Weather stations and spore traps to calibrate disease models
In October, DPIRD installed four new weather stations: two in vineyards in the Margaret River region and two in vineyards in the Great Southern region.
The installations occurred as part of a project investigating the link between weather parameters and disease incidence. The weather stations (iMETOS 3.3) record a range of weather variables, including leaf wetness, which is currently not recorded from weather stations connected to the DPIRD and BOM network.
Leaf wetness duration is an important parameter for the development of diseases and is a useful measurement for vineyard operations. Several disease models have been developed which use leaf wetness as a factor in calculating the risk of disease incidence and severity. Often referred to as Decision Support Systems (DSS), disease models are available for the main grape diseases found in WA, including botrytis, powdery and downy mildew. A suite of disease models is available as part of the installed weather stations software.
However, none of the disease models developed have been calibrated or validated under WA conditions or vineyards. As a component of this project, rotor-rod spore traps have been placed next to, or in blocks close to, the weather station to capture spores within the vineyard. These spore traps were designed and optimised by researchers in Oregon, USA who have kindly provided details on their construction. The spore traps spin greased rods that capture powdery mildew spores in the air and have been found to detect powdery mildew before symptoms of the disease are observed by scouts. At the end of the season, the rods will be sent off to assess the amount of powdery mildew spores they capture, after being replaced weekly in the vineyard.
We chose to investigate powdery mildew as it is the number one ranked disease for management in vineyards in WA. It is hoped that the spore trap data will correlate with the powdery mildew disease models, allowing growers to be able to use the DSS to assist in their decision making on its management.
Whilst the weather stations have been placed on commercial vineyards, the vineyards have agreed to allow access to the data that the weather stations generate. This also includes the disease models that are available. If you are interested in viewing the data, the Field Climate website https://ng.fieldclimate.com/ is accessible using the following login details. A field climate app is also available from app stores which allows access to the weather data from your smart phone.
User: DPIRDHORT
Password: DPIRDweather22
After the spore trap rods are analysed, we will determine the efficiency of the powdery mildew disease model linked to the weather station and present the information to industry.
This project is part of the Regional Program funded by Wine Australia with the weather stations purchased by DPIRD. We thank all those vineyards who are participating in the project.