Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

1
CommentGo Back

Download

Vintage 2011 - Botrytis Bunch Rot in McLaren Vale

This season’s harvest was affected by Botrytis Bunch Rot,

botrytis cinerea

(and other Bunch secondarymoulds). There are two times when grapes are susceptible to botrytis infection at flowering, and atripening. Weather conditions during harvest were ideal for the development of bunch rot.We can summarizes the conditions that suit botrytis as,-

High Humidity-

Leaf and bunch wetness-

Warm temperatures (20-24

C).By looking at the weather conditions this season during those times we can look at why vintage 2011 washeavily affected.

Flowering

All of South Australia had rainfall during spring. Even a small amount of rain or free moisture, allied withhigh humidity can cause botrytis infection of grape vine flowers (

below right

Botrytis

infection at flowering causes ‘latentinfection”. This infection lies latent as it

enters a resting stage until the berries ripenproviding a source of food for further growth.

The wet weather during flowering allowedbotrytis to be inside fruit lying dormantwaiting for sugar to develop.This is not uncommon and occurs in manyseasons. What made this season differentwas the weather during March saw this‘latent’ botrytis develop into a full infection.The wet weather at that time meant thatbunch rots were active at both flowering andripening.



March

Low levels of

botrytis

were seenin some vineyards in earlyMarch caused by some rain inFebruary. This level of botrytiswas fairly low and limited tovarieties with very tightbunches.Pictured

left

on March 20th is abunch of Riesling with an earlyinfection of

botrytis

. Thisvineyard was assessed ashaving 1.1%

botrytis

severity –ordinarily we would considerthis was a low level and unlikelyto affect harvest.Unfortunately the weatherconditions changed.McLaren Vale had a three day rain event, from the 20

to the 23

of March that produced long periods of leaf wetness. Conditionswere warm and the windwas still. Furthermoreheavy dews (

right

) wereexperienced in manylocations which createdconditions inside thegrapevine canopy thatwere warm, wet andhumid.Download the MarchWeather Datahere.

The steamy, wet weather caused low lying cloud toshroud the valley.Immediately after the rain event some

Botrytis

wasevident across the majority of vineyards.After the rain it then became a case of how closevineyards were to harvest ripeness. In hindsight we canconsider the district in 3 areas. 1- south of McLarenVale– 2- north of McLaren Vale and 3- McLaren Flat,Blewitt Springs & Clarendon.