Fewer Sprays, Better Grapes: Learn About Root’s Advanced Airborne Powdery Mildew Monitoring Stations

One of Root’s airborne powdery mildew monitoring stations will be on display along with literature on how growers have used the system to produce higher quality grapes with fewer resources. Stop by and learn how you can save money and manage powdery mildew more effectively. Special offer: 10% early bird savings for growers who sign up for 2025 service by December 10.

Why use spore traps?

Spore traps collect spores from the air, before they land on plants and cause disease. Incorporating spore trap data into management allows growers to optimize resources all while increasing sustainability, improving farm worker health, and producing higher quality fruit.
Lengthening spray intervals when risk is low
Getting a heads up when risk is suddenly high
Managing areas according to risk
Scouting more efficiently
Confidence when making on the fly decisions, like how important is this spray when the tractor broke down or its suddenly windy

What’s better about Root’s system?

Root’s powdery mildew monitoring system:

Is more sensitive, sampling more air than spinning rods
Is more timely, with results typically back within 24 hours
Analyzes spore trap samples twice per week giving growers more time to respond to a threat
Enables more efficient use of pesticides including greater usage of biologicals as growers know precisely when to spray and receive twice weekly data on pressure to confirm success

Am I going to save money?

Growers say the service pays for itself when they reduce one spray. The average customer reduces five sprays.

Where should I put traps?

Downwind of areas with a history of disease for earliest alert
Upwind of your vineyard to detect what’s coming in
Regularly (every 10 acres) for block-level management
At local maxima, or hillcrest, to get a feel for landscape-level pressure (AVA)

How has Root helped growers over the past few years?

2021: The powdery mildew risk index (PMI, weather-based index) was high early, but there were no spores in the air. Growers were able to lengthen intervals and reduce sprays. Then when Root detected spores arriving in late June, growers were notified and were ready.
2022: The PMI was low, but Root detected millions of spores in the air in early April. Growers got on their sprays and avoided problems. By hitting it hard and knocking the pathogen back early, growers working with Root were able to lengthen intervals and save sprays later in the season as their risk was low.
2023: The PMI suggested no problem until the end of July in west Carneros last year. Root’s growers were able to lengthen intervals and reduce sprays early, ramp up in June, and continue controlling powdery mildew until the grapes were no longer threatened without blowing their budgets despite the long season
2024: Root detected PM on March 29, before anyone expected it. Our growers were able to get a spray on a few days later avoiding any outbreaks, skipping later sprays, and staying ahead of disease all season.

My vineyard is high pressure. Can Root’s system help me?

Most of Root’s growers put their monitoring system in high pressure areas, but some growers in very high pressure regions prefer to monitor their less susceptible varieties because that is where they can cut sprays.

Root Applied Sciences
WIN Expo Booth: 716

Root Applied Sciences’ monitoring platform alerts growers to pests and disease before they land on plants and cause disease. The near-real-time spatial and temporal information is giving wine grape growers resilience despite unpredictable outbreaks due to climate change. Growers with Root’s grape powdery mildew monitoring service are controlling disease more effectively with fewer resources, producing higher quality grapes. Growers are using pesticides more efficiently (reducing 20%-80%), saving money (3.5X ROI), increasing sustainability, and reducing farmworker exposure to pesticides all while safeguarding their fruit. Root’s analysis is based on DNA, making it sensitive and specific.

Validated robustness with >10,000 customer samples, dirt, and fungicide spike-ins
Superior capture technology as published independently by USDA scientists
Repeat customers for 4 years + diversified customer base