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PRESSING NEWS FROM GENESIS!

UPDATED:
NEW! 09-30-11
ENSAYO MICORRIZAS
English Translation
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this test are:
Analyze the influence of Mycorrize on root and vegetative development of grapevine, with two different substratum and two different plantation technics, one is the normally used in the nursery and the other one the technic recommended by the product provider. . .
SEE THE RESULTS

 

Science sides with agriculture as global population booms

The use of mycorrhize multi specie inoculum and beneficial bacteria has proven itself for some 460 million years, it is the reason plants are still on this earth. The most sustainable practices for increased soil biology and sustaining your bottom line is now available to all farmers. Dramatic increase in nutrient efficiencies,by 30%, water savings by 40% and most importantly the antagonistic potential against disease that will reduce soil bourn diseases.

This is financial stability and exemplifies best farming practices for our future.

Evaluating Plant Moisture Stress in Cabernet Sauvignon 04-02-10

Spring Mountain Vineyard initiates extensive “Stress Test” in vineyards inoculated with Genesis Soils Rhizo-Gen mycorrhizal inoculum liquid. Ron Rosenbrand director of viticulture at Spring Mountain Vineyards compiles extensive PMS readings in several blocks to evaluate the vast differences in control verses treated grapevines.

Please click to view Evaluating Plant Moisture Stress in Cabernet Sauvignon

PHYLLOXERA in History 04-22-10
Phylloxera has been a vine killer for a long time and has cost the industry as they say billions. Genesis has an answer to this serious problem that will continually morph unless we take a different approach, an internal combative one. One that has 460 million years of answers.

You have been too indulgent to the promoters of the dangerous idea of the Phylloxera-effect; this idea has caused the ruin of a great number of vines and reduced to powerlessness the most authoritative among those
who wish to devote themselves to this so grave question. (Falières 1874, p. 1)

Unfortunately, after having committed themselves to Phylloxera as the unique cause of the malady, Dumas and the government then resisted accepting the promise of the US vines. Thus began la défense – the attempt to defend the old vines and the old ways against the devastating US invader. The commission considers the Phylloxera as the cause of the maladie of the vine. It proposes for a precise goal the conservation of the French vines, their principal types being the product of secular practice, it is important above all to save them.
(Cornu and Dumas 1876, p. 1)

Persuaded that only insecticidal treatment, to the exclusion of all other procedures, was capable of battling effectively against the Phylloxera and making it definitively disappear, they adopted an intransigent attitude
and proclaimed obstinately their hostility toward the American vines and their partisans, the ‘Americanists’. (Pouget 1990, p. 41) The remains of this dossier of stupidities reveals a sad day for the state of mind of the great public in terms of its scientific instruction’ (Pouget 1990, p. 31). In the end, nothing worked and the vines all died.

By the early 1890s, incidental success of ‘la reconstitution’ – replanting France with the American vines – had eliminated insecticidal use on all but the finest properties: ‘This means of defense, having caused many disappointments in most types of soils, ceased to be applied’ (Zacharewicz 1932, p. 279). In the end, everyone agreed that, if French viticulture were to be saved, it wasn’t going to be saved by the methods of la défense.

Just as their French ancestors had a century earlier, Californian growers denied the reality before their eyes, seizing on any possible explanation rather than Phylloxera for the growing disaster. Even Davis’s scientists appeared to go into denial. After Goheen’s discovery in 1982, it took seven long years of argument before Davis’s viticulturalists ‘like a deadlocked jury, had begun to tilt from the weight of incontrovertable evidence’ (Lubow 1993, p. 60). In 1989 the Davis scientists noted that ‘it was clear that AxR #1 was not adequately resistant to California Phylloxera’ (Granett et al. 1996, p. 10).

The phrasing of this remark suggests a new development in the century-old battle with the beast. It is not that the rootstock is not adequately resistant to Phylloxera in California; rather, it is not adequately resistant to
Californian Phylloxera. According to the Davis scientists, the rootstock had not lost its original resistance, but rather the bug populations had evolved in such a way that the rootstock’s original resistance was bypassed. In other words, a newly evolved version of the bug – a new biotype2 capable of living on AxR #1 – began emerging as the dominant population of northern California. Thus, the AxR-rooted vines were doomed.
In the end, 50 000 acres (20 234 hectares) in Napa and Sonoma alone need replacing, at an estimated cost of somewhere around US$1 billion (Sullivan 1996, p. 7). Unfortunately this is only the beginning. AxR plantings
ASEC04 87 8/28/02, 13:12 88 G. Gale comprise a vast amount of the total Californian vignoble, including vineyards in Lake, Mendocino, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Alameda and Santa Clara counties.


Darwin certainly prepared us for such an outcome. Evolutionary forces never cease, adaptation between prey and predator is a dynamic state, never ever stabilizing into a static relationship. Will the French grafting solution, discovered at the cost of much blood, sweat and tears 100 years ago, always work to keep the Phylloxera at bay? An affirmative answer would be foolhardy at present, since we simply don’t know how and why the French solution worked. As Granett et al. (1996, p. 13) conclude: ‘The stability of these rootstocks may not be eternal, and we should be prepared for Phylloxera strains that are better adapted and potentially damaging in the future’. Eternal vigilance, as always, is the cost of security.

 

PHYLLOXERA FACTS/ANSWERS 04-16-10

One special area of interest is the role soil biological activity plays in maintaining vine health and crop quality. Soil microorganisms, including beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, play a major role in nutrient uptake of the vine. These organisms also help protect the vine against nematode attack and other pathogens. Optimum soil biology activity for a field producing pasture is quite different from the optimum soil biological environment required for grape growing. In the latter case we need more fungal biomass including mycorrhizal fungi to create a typical vine environment in the soil. Promoting mycorrhizal fungi will dramatically increase the total soil volume the vine will have access to source water and nutrients, and will benefit uptake of elements like phosphorus, zinc and calcium.


Understanding more about how the vine’s own “immune” system works, help us produce stronger and more resistant vines. Although it may not always be possible to completely discard fungicide use, it certainly seems possible to reduce the need for fungicides and/or increase the efficiency of fungicide use. One of the ways we can do this is by using (natural) elicitors that can “prime” the vines immune system so it is better prepared against pathogen attack. By eliciting the vine’s immune response, a number of defense chemical (phytoalexin) that is involved in imparting a level of disease resistance to the plant. Helping to increase the vine’s resistance to pathogen attack can also be done by promoting beneficial organisms on the leaf surface.


A healthy leaf contains many different microorganisms on the leaf surface. Under normal conditions they will help resist pathogen invasion by competition (food and space) as well as the production of specific antimicrobial substances that help keep pathogens at bay. Unfortunately, in many vineyards management has reduced the presence of a diverse and beneficial population on microorganisms. Too often, soil and fertilizer management is only reactive and not integrated. If soil samples show some deficiencies some fertilizer will be applied. If petiole samples show deficiencies a foliar spray may be applied. However, typically here is no coherent nutrient, soil and vine management system in place. Information from soil samples and petioles is not used to its full potential and is not properly retained for easy future use. Mycorrhizal fungi promote good plant nutrition by obtaining nutrients from the soil, and exchanging these nutrients with the plant for carbon. In addition, mycorrhizal fungi can physically protect roots against pathogens and root feeding nematodes, and improve soil structure by binding soil aggregates in to larger water-stable aggregates.

Organic type management aimed at maximizing soil and vine health appear to have the potential to reduce the impact of phylloxera on vines. Mostly these approaches maximize biological activity and competition in the soil, increase beneficial biological activity in the rhizosphere, and strengthen the vine’s own defense system.
The impact of management practices that promote soil biological activity may be to a large extent by minimizing the secondary infection and damage. Soils with good biological activity and diversity have a significant suppressive effect on pathogens like Fusarium and Pythium.


Under organic management vines are likely to have stronger defense systems to pathogenic attack (SAR Systemic Acquired Resistance). The presence of PGPB- Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria and other beneficial rhizosphere microbes increase root activity/growth, which can compensate for the damage done by phylloxera.

“Leaf Roll Virus” is it the next disaster in vineyards 03-28-10

The eradication of leaf roll virus does not occur in mature vineyards that are infected; we can only reduce its effect to a manageable and acceptable level. Our focus is to keep the vines at an acceptable level of health to keep the character of the wine quality at an acceptable level. At Genesis our focus is to inoculate older infected vineyards with an increased level of Rhizo-Gen mycorrhizal component to increase the root systems mass to enable the plant to take up nutrients and water more efficiently.

In addition we will be increasing organic nutrition on a more regular basis through the fertigation practices with liquid organic fertilizers. Genesis is also increasing compost tea foliar applications on a regular basis, in conjunction with added foliar phosphorus. Phosphorus intake is critical in the control of leaf roll virus. Mycorrhizae enable the plant to access phosphorus and other critical elements. Foliar applications during the year and especially the time between fruit set and verasion are critical to keep the vine on the healthy curve of stress during fruit development. Our outlook is to reduce the effects to a manageable level to keep the wine characteristics in line with our expected wine quality.

Genesis can help you design a site specific program to aid in the control of leaf roll virus.

 

It really becomes “How to live with leaf roll” 03-012-10

At Genesis we encourage nurseries and foundation plant material services to use Genesis Rhizo-Gen mycorrhizal components at this critical stage. The best the industry can do at this point is to hopefully start with the cleanest material as possible and introduce our product at this early stage. The increase blocks will have the benefit of mycorrhizal protection until cuttings are made for the industry; this ensures protection during this phase of growth. Bench grafts should be planted in Genesis Rhizo-Gen nursery mix, or the nursery wanting to use its own medium the vines should be inoculated using our services with our liquid Rhizo-Gen. This will ensure continued protection until field planting.

Root stocks present a different approach, as they are generally heat treated and mycorrhizal colonization is destroyed. The in field root stock at the nursery should be inoculated with our liquid Rhizo-Gen through their normal fertigation system. The vines will out perform any other approach.

(See owner document on applications in 1980).

Nurseries will harvest the rootstocks in the dormant winter season when soils are wet. Root stripping occurs during the lifting process before they are processed in the packing house. Traditionally nurseries trim what roots are left, removing valuable mycorrhizal roots. And unfortunately what little root is left is trimmed to a much smaller length in the field for ease of planting. Again, the valuable mycorrhizal protection is continually reduced. Genesis recommends a liquid application of Rhizo-Gen at planting time to continue the protection for the health of the plant. But on the favorable side, the plant has had the benefit of continual mycorrhizal protection during infancy. Industry forces have destroyed any chance of mycorrhizal protection unless we change the system of propagation.

 

Syrah Decline in California Vineyards 02-02-10

Genesis Soils has been asked to aid in applications of its Genesis Rhizo-Gen mycorrhizal components in California Syrah vineyards. We are applying the same principles and science as we are in leaf roll infected vineyards from age class nursery to 20 year old affected vineyards. Stress, nutrient uptake, disease suppression are all controllable with the use of Genesis Rhizo-Gen. In combination with an increased nutrient program both soil and foliar feeding, we hope to control this decline.

Please contact us if you would like to enter our Spring Syrah Decline applications!

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