Pruning to fight gray mold

This week again, plants at Ghost House Farm have grown a new cluster. That is very great since one new cluster per week is the maximum we can get!

Nice progress

1. The thickness of the stem is coming from too big to being the size of an AA battery again.
2. In only two weeks, they have increased their fruit load by 4x !!
   
   

Diseases showing up

The row in the middle of the tunnel is starting to get disease pressure. From the photo below, we suspect it is gray mold.

The graphs show no humidity issue. Otherwise, there would be a red zone showing the moment when humidity would have been too high for too long.

So, the gray mold issue is due to a microclimate, where airflow is lacking. The air in the middle of a tunnel is always more stagnant than on the sides, so no surprise there.

Increasing airflow by pruning

The infected leaves will only get worse from now on. Pruning and removing them from the tunnel will reduce the spread.

Then, pruning at least one leaf per leader, sick or not, will helps with airflow.

Since we are trying to solve an issue, it is not the lowest leaves of the leader we should prune. Instead, we aim for the bigger ones, regardless where they are in the plant. We want air to pass through the plants, not underneath them. 

The damages are not problematic yet. With the increased airflow, we are confident that they will keep control over gray mold. 

Again, good job, Allison and Drew!

Keep up the amazing one-cluster-per-week growth. The season looks promising!