On Sat, 8 May 2004, Howard Neil wrote:

David Rance wrote:


Every ten days to a fortnight. I always spray with a mixture of
bordeaux and Dithane. One takes care of downy mildew and the other
powdery mildew. Both these mildews can attack at any time and you can
lose the whole crop.

Thanks.

In fact, I have my doubts as to whether Bordeaux Mixture will be of any
use with botrytis (grey mould). I can find no recommendations to its use
for botrytis in any of my books or on the web. Instead there seems to be
greater emphasis on cleanliness of the soil and the vine, i.e. don't
leave any dead leaves around. My advice would be to remove the
polytunnel when the grapes are approaching ripeness because it is then
that they are most prone to botrytis developing.

Of course, you still need to spray regularly against powdery and downy
mildews.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Internet: | writing from |
| Fidonet: David Rance 2:252/110 | Caversham, |
| BBS: telnet://mesnil.demon.co.uk | Reading, UK |
+-------------------------------------------------------+