Sometimes with all the repetitive physical work in the Shiraz Republic, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some gulag for the political dissidents who still believe in a good red. There is a lot of repetitive physical work, but sometimes we do science. Mostly our science is confined to the winery; testing pH, tasting and blending; but not this weekend.
Son No1, Chri
s, is a scientist specialising in arboriculture. He was concerned with all the trouble we had with Downey Mildew in the 2010-2011 season and thought there might be some biological control options that might work better and be more organic. Good bugs fighting bad bugs. He spoke with his boss at Enspec and they asked if the Republic could make available a small patch of vines for them to conduct some tests on. This sounded like a possible win-win proposition, so why not give it a go.
So this weekend my son arrived armed with little containers of bugs, or more technically two species of Trichoderma. Trichoderma harzanium and a Trichoderma species (yet to be identified). We used a spore solution and an innoculum grown on a rice media. These were sprayed onto some test vines and the rice gently dug in around the base of some vines. Being a scientist, Chris has carefully tagged the vines and identified some control vines. Throughout the season we'll monitor, make some additional applications and Chris will write it up for publication.