It's a Cutworm

Earlier this week, I blogged about a mass of white eggs that I found on a grape shoot. I cut the shoot and brought it home to take better photos.

The eggs were laid in such perfect rows that it was quite beautiful. When we ran into Pamm Cooper at the Soil and Cover Crops Workshop held at Woodstock Orchards she quickly identified the eggs as cutworm eggs.

It was good to know what they were and her diagnosis was confirmed the following day when I happened to check the container that I put the grape shoot in. The eggs had begun to hatch. There were many of these little black worms in the container, so taking one out, we took a photo next to a ball point pen. They are tiny, little things with large black heads. In the Western United States, these cutworms are known as the Striacosta albicosta and are devastating to corn crops. In the Northeast, I believe that these eggs are those of the Noctua pronuba moth. In looking at Google images of our cutworm eggs, this identification appears to fit. This cleared up a mystery for us. In July, I saw this grapeleaf with all of these worms on it and flagged the plant. After consultation with my husband, we decided that so many "whatevers" can't be good, so we removed the leaf but did not know what it was:

Mystery solved and it was a good idea to remove the leaf at that time. Wikipedia lists one of the food sources of the Noctua pronuba or the Large Yellow Underwing Moth as Vitis.
Good references to read for more information include:
1. Wikipedia entry for: Noctua pronuba
2. Christina Difonzo¹ and Howard Russell², Noctua pronuba(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae): An Outbreak in Emails, ¹Department of Entomology, Michigan State University and ²Diagnostic Services, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, October, 2010.
3. Images for the Large Yellow Underwing Moth can be found here:
North American Moth Photographers Group.

Soil and Cover Crops

On Thursday, my husband and I took a trip to Woodstock Orchards in Woodstock, CT, to attend a Connecticut National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) workshop on Amendments, Cover Crops and Nutrient Cycling in Soils. The agenda included Professor Tom Morris from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, who spoke about Cover Crops and Nutrient Cycling in Soils. The importance of cover crops include preventing soil erosion, maintaining soil organic matter and capturing nitrates. In order to improve soil structure, he recommended turning in the cover crop, but emphasized that proper timing is crucial. He quoted Columella who wrote about agriculture in the first century:
     Where no kind of manure is to be had, I think the cultivation of lupines will be found the      readiest and best substitute. If they are sown    about the middle of September in a poor soil … they will answer as well as the best manure. –– Columella, First Century, Rome

It is interesting to me that much of what we are rediscovering as good agricultural practices were known in "ancient times". Prof. Morris recommended using buckwheat, crimson clover, hairy vetch (for nitrogen), rye, and sorghum-sudan. Prof. Morris mentioned that much of the work on cover crops was done in the 70's at Rodale. Prof. Morris also mentioned that a good site to listen to webinars about cover crops can be found at the Penn State Extension:
2013 Cover Crop Innovations Webinar Series Recordings.

The next speaker was Tom Akin from the NRCS-MA, whose topic was Cover Crops and Soil Physical Properties. His focus was on soil attributes and how cover crops can help in making physical improvements to the soil. Tom said to unlock the resources in the soil, the soil must remain an aerobic, living system by minimizing tillage, keeping the soil covered and keeping living roots in the soil throughout the year. The roots of plants aid in the formation of water stable aggregates creating pores that helps move water through the soil and not as surface runoff. To emphasize this point, Lisa Krall and Raymond Covino (NRCS-CT) set up a demonstration:

From left to right, the experiment shows (1) cover crop, (2) cover crop cut and laid down, (3) light grass, (4) tilled with crop residue on top and (5) tilled. They simulated rainfall and the bottles were there to capture the water. It is clear that in the (5) tilled soil, there is a lot of runoff carrying away nutrients. We then split into two groups to see three different cover crop treatments as well as a soil test pit.
We thought the day was a thought provoking one and are now doing more online research on understanding how using cover crops can have a beneficial impact in our vineyard. Another benefit to attending these workshops is meeting people. We saw Pamm Cooper from the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension whom we know from our Master Gardener activities. Pamm cleared up one mystery. These eggs are those of the cutworm! Good thing we took it out of our vineyard!

Jim Thompson: Vineyard Manager at Martha Clara

On our trip to Long Island, we met with Jim Thompson, the vineyard manager at Martha Clara. Jim is one of the organizers of the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers. Jim started managing vineyards and practicing viticulture in Traverse City, Michigan. Jim took us around the 100 acres that he oversees and explained the various tests that were being conducted in the vineyard by Alice Wise, Viticulturalist and Education Specialist for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, at the Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center in Riverhead.

Jim drove us around the extensive vineyard, pointing out where some Merlot vines were converted to Sauvignon blanc. They brought out experts from California to do the chip budding in the field and the results were some amazing growth of the new shoots this year. There are several barns in the vineyard and in one barn was a Lipco sprayer that they use. It was huge! There is definitely a difference in scale of equipment between a 100 acre vineyard and the 4.5 acre vineyard that we have. One of the things that Jim said was indispensable was the movable catch wires that Martha Clara uses to position the grape shoots. (My ears perked up!) Jim said with movable catch wires, the vineyard crew can do the 700 miles of wires in 3 days! (In our vineyard, we will have about 6 miles of catch wires.) In this photo, Jim is explaining how the catch wires are tethered to the end post. Since we also plan to do movable catch wires, it was really instructive for us to see how it is done. We took a short break with Jim to have lunch at Love Lane Kitchen and then back to Martha Clara to finish up the day with a wine tasting. We thoroughly enjoyed the on site education from Jim.

Fearful Symmetry

We are in the vineyard making a last pass through the vines at dusk on Sunday. The vineyard beckons with promises of discoveries to be made, good or bad, delightful or fearful, known or unknown. This evening, walking and Max Tapenering (more on this process in another blog), and doing bug patrol, I came upon a vine that looked white. A thought ran through my head, "What is white fungus doing on a vine?" I should tell you, I need to wear glasses to see anything more than 6 feet beyond my sight line so white fungus was what I saw. But on closer inspection, I recognized it for what it was and it looked like this:

I know, it looks like sweet corn, doesn't it. I was torn. Leave it in the vineyard or cut the vine and remove it. We're still new in this business so we know that if this is bad, it is very bad, but if this is good, it could be very good. Foe or friend?

That is the question. In the end, I chose to cut the vine and bring it back in a water bottle that I had previously emptied. Having these eggs in hand I was able to take closer photos of these mystery eggs. What we believe is that these are stinkbug eggs, but we still do not know if these are beneficial stinkbugs or not. Either way, it's amazing how so many eggs can be laid in such straight rows.
Update: On August 29th, we went to a Soil and Cover Crops Workshop sponsored by the NRCS and we met Pamm Cooper of the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension who identified these eggs as being that of a cutworm.