Two weeks ago today I had my last day at CLEREL and I already miss it!  I had such a great summer filled with amazing people and experiences.  I was able to get a hands on feel for research, I gained exposure to hops and grapes, I went to California and collected data in table and wine grape vineyards, I attended an NGWI conference in Napa and met a lot of influential people in the industry, and I started to think more seriously about what my plans should be after I graduate next May.

My last week was devoted to the hops.  I collected my leaves on Monday and spent the next few days counting mites.  I also borrowed a camera, which I was able to hook up to the microscope and take some photos of TSSM and predatory mites.  The photo to the left is a two spotted spider mite, distinguishable by the two black spots on either side of its abdomen.  The photo below is a predatory mite and if you look closely, you can see the outline of an egg.  It’s hard to determine the species of the predatory mite, as the only difference between species is the shape of the anal plate at the back of the abdomen.

That Thursday, Tim cut down the Brewer’s Gold from the variety row in the hopyard and ran them through the harvester he made. After they went through we still had to pick a lot of the cones off by hand.  Tim is still trying to perfect the harvester and make it more efficient than hand harvesting.  Some of the bines had male flowers, which are the smaller, almost white flowers next to the cones in the photo below.   Once the hops had been harvested, Kim figured out the moisture percentage and how much the hops should weigh when they reach 10% moisture.  They were then put into a drying oven, and a sample was weighed periodically until it reached the target weight for 10% moisture.  Kim used a moisture calculator found at the University of Vermont extension website here: https://www.uvm.edu/extension/agriculture/engineering/?Page=hopscalc.html.

Today, I drove up to Geneva from Cornell, where I am back in the swing of classes.  I met Karen, a woman who works with mites at a lab there, and she helped me identify the predatory mites I had saved on slides.  I still have a few to go through, but most of the ones I collected are N. fallacis.  I did find several tydeid mites, which feed on fungus, not TSSM.  Under a microscope they looked distinctly different than the two species I released, which are phytoseiid mites. I will go through the rest of my slides on campus in Ithaca and finish putting all of my data together.  I am almost done with my project, and will be ready to present at the Internship Reception in October.

Last week a group of us from the lab took a trip to Empire Farm Days, which is a three day event focused on agricultural related topics.  A lot of it is machinery and equipment, but there is a building for the Cornell Cooperative Extension.  We set up a table with information on GPS sensing and grape pests, but unfortunately not too many people stopped to chat with us about these topics.  There were many people from the extension there with booths and information on agriculture, so the attendees did learn something new, even if it wasn’t related to vineyard management.

On Wednesday I went to a vineyard/hopyard in Pennsylvania with Tim and Luke.  We were only there for about an hour in the morning, but it gave me the opportunity to see an actual production hopyard outside those planted for research and extension.  The hopyard was much bigger than those here and in Geneva, and it was also the shorter production rows, instead of the tall ones.  It was really interesting to see the amount of cones that will be harvested from their plants; they were heavy with them and will be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks.  As we were walking down their rows we did see some TSSM damage though; hopefully they can take the right measures to get rid of them before they infest the cones and damage their crop.

The rest of the week I spent counting the mites from the leaf samples I collected Wednesday afternoon.  The TSSM are really starting to spike in some areas of the hopyard, and I am starting to see the bronzing on the leaves that is characteristic damage of TSSM (photo to the left).  However, as I keep mentioning, I am not seeing the numbers of predatory mites I should be.

I had a conference call with Greg about my project and we talked about potential reasons why the predatory mites aren’t there.  Heavy rainfall will cause the mites to wash away from the leaves, which would result in lower numbers following a storm.  Also, predatory mites don’t move with the wind using spinnerets the way TSSM do, so if they don’t have a food source readily available, they will crawl to find a new one; my best guess would be down to the ground where there are other plants and weeds where they can feed on pollen.  I am going to go back and look at the weather, especially rainfall, the day before I collected my leaf samples each week and the day after I released the predatory mites in June to see if that could be the cause.

After our discussion we decided that I should release some more predatory mites into the hopyard.  On Thursday I ordered 20,000 more N. fallacis and had them overnighted so I could release them on Friday.  This time I released them at the opposite end of the hopyard that I released them at in June.  This week will be my last week of counting, but I am hoping to see more predatory mites at the end of the row where I released them.  If I still am not seeing them there will be another interesting project for someone in the future looking at where they might be going!

I had an amazing time in California last week and couldn’t have asked for a better experience!  As I mentioned two weeks ago, we were in Delano sensing two different table grape vineyards, one of which was already being harvested.  That Friday we sensed a merlot J. Lohr vineyard in Paso Robles, which was one of my favorite places we visited.  It is in the hills, rather than the valley, and even though California is in the middle of a severe drought and everything is brown, it was still beautiful!  On Saturday we sensed a petite sirah Gallo vineyard.  Seeing the management and quality of these vineyards was amazing; they were trellised and maintained almost perfectly.

The sensors we were using were Crop Circle canopy sensors produced by Holland Scientific that measure the vegetative index.  We had two that we attached to an ATV or tractor to get two different readings from the vines (photo to the left).  The sensors were also hooked up to a data logger, along with a GPS.  As we drove down the rows of the vineyard the sensors would collect the data and the GPS would keep track of the location, which allows the data to be compared throughout the vineyard and exact locations of data points to be recorded.

I also attended the NGWI (National Wine and Grape Initiative) conference last Monday.   The morning was spent in the vineyard at the UC Davis experimental station where a researcher from Carnegie Mellon talked about his research on nondestructive yield estimates (photo to the right).  He has created an imaging system that takes photos at set intervals that can be used to estimate the yield.  The rest of the day was spent listening to other researchers talk about their projects.  The most educational aspect for me was learning about the funding and grant writing that goes into the projects, which is something I have known about, but listening to the discussion first hand was interesting.

The meeting was finished off with a wine reception and dinner at Louis M Martini wine cellar in Napa.  It was one of the most delicious dinners I have ever had and in one of the most unique locations.  How many people can say they have dined by candle light in a wine cellar surrounded by giant oak barrels?  The reception allowed me to talk with several different people and make invaluable connections that will hopefully open doors for me in the future.  The trip as a whole cemented my interest in the field, and with my undergraduate education coming to an end, it has gotten me thinking about potential job opportunities and options in the wine and grape industry.

We were also able to have some fun on the trip! Friday afternoon was spent driving up the coast, and we stopped several times to take photos of the view.  One of the spots we stopped at had a trail that we followed down to a rocky shore line where there were tidal pools with anemones and clams.  Farther up the coast, in Monterey, we stopped at a beach and waded in the Pacific Ocean.  On Sunday we drove into San Francisco, where we walked part way across the Golden Gate Bridge, and rode the cable car down to the fisherman’s wharf where we ate lunch at the Boudin sourdough bakery.  San Francisco is definitely a city I would love to go back to with more time to explore!

The end of last week was spent counting the mites on the hop leaves Kim collected for me on Tuesday while I was gone.  There has definitely been an increase in TSSM, and the mites aren’t found everywhere, but rather in little pockets around the hopyard.  I still haven’t found very many predatory mites and Tim has suggested that maybe I release more at the opposite end of the hopyard, as some of the TSSM numbers are above the 5-10 mites per leave threshold for July.  Next week I will have a better update for you, as I will be discussing my project with Tim and Greg, my faculty supervisor for the project on Wednesday.

The two vineyard photos and the photo of the coast were taken by Terry Bates