On Mon, 29 May 2017 21:43:10 Chris Hogg wrote:

Bordeaux mixture. I'm not surprised you're the only one using it. Not
available any more. Withdrawn from sale a couple of years ago. Yours
is old stock, I take it. Make it last!

Bordeaux mixture is a copper-lime fungicide, as you probably know.
Bayer did 'fruit and vegetable disease control' fungicide, in sachets,
that was based on copper oxychloride, but I see that's been withdrawn
now, although still available on Ebay, apparently
http://tinyurl.com/yd7jsyj8

There is this, which is in effect Bordeaux mixture but not named as
such and is a two-pack system that you mix yourself, which I suppose
gets round the regulations http://tinyurl.com/y9mnbw4q Makes 4 litres,
but for £3.55 + £1.33 postage that seems expensive to me.

It might be cheaper to buy your own hydrated lime and copper sulphate
in bulk and mix as needed. http://tinyurl.com/yc6vw4rf and get
hydrated lime from a builders merchant (most 'lime' sold in garden
centres is actually ground limestone, which won't behave like lime
when combined with copper sulphate, although is ok for adding to
soil). Instructions for making it, here http://tinyurl.com/kkbpqfq
with the caveat that she says slaked lime is calcium oxide, which is
wrong. Slaked lime is calcium hydroxide, and is the same as hydrated
lime. Calcium oxide is just lime.

I'll make a note of that. I'm coming to the end of my stock of Bordeaux
Mixture which is essential for me to spray on my vines every three weeks
or so in the growing season otherwise the vines get devastated by mildew
and I lose the crop.

I'll check first in the local agricultural merchants in France for
availability because the French don't always take notice of EU
regulations - unlike us! But if the French, and the Germans for that
matter, can't use Bordeaux Mixture I'd like to know what they use
instead.

I remember being on holiday amongst the vineyards along the Mosel in
Germany about twenty-odd years ago. They had alerts published for when
mildew was likely to strike and then they hired light planes to spray
Bordeaux Mixture along the banks of the river as it was impossible to
spray effectively from the ground owing to the slope of the river banks.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK