Weed Control in Vineyards Sustainable Winegrowing

Trying to manage the weeds in your vineyard? John Roncoroni, Weed Science Farm Advisor Emeritus with the University of California Cooperative Extension, Agriculture and Natural Resources covers control practices including biological, mechanical, cultural, chemical, and perhaps in the future, electrocution. Although weeds rarely compete with vines, they can host insect and vertebrate pests and get in the way of pruning crews, increasing labor costs. Listen in for John’s number one tip to better manage weeds in your vineyard.
Resources:         128: A New Focus on Weed Management (Rebroadcast) 26th IPM Seminar #1: Sustainable Weed Management for Vineyards and Vineyard Ponds Herbicide-resistant weeds challenge some signature cropping systems (Journal article) John Roncoroni MAINTAINING LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT: Herbicide-resistant weeds challenge some signature cropping systems Post-harvest Weed Control with Napa RCD and John Roncoroni (video) Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand – Western SARE (online courses) University of California Integrated Pest Management Integrated Weed Management Vineyard Floor Management: Steel in the Field (video) Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
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Transcript Craig Macmillan  0:00 
Our guest today is John Roncoroni. He is Weed Science Farm advisor emeritus with UC Cooperative Extension, UC Agriculture Natural Resources, and we're going to talk about cultural control of weeds in vineyards today. Thanks for being on the podcast, John.
 
John Roncoroni  0:13 
Now you bet, Creg, thank you for having me.
 
Craig Macmillan  0:16 
We met with we'll start with kind of a basic foundation, what would you say is the definition of cultural weed control? Maybe How does it differ from other forms of weed management?
 
John Roncoroni  0:25 
cultural weed control as part of an integrated pest management program, you know, we have basically cultural mechanical, sometimes they're put together sometimes they're split, we have biological, which is much more important, I think, in insects than it is in weeds. Now, we talk about biological control of weeds just a little bit to show how it fits in with all this too, is that you know, when you see that rust growing on a malba, or cheese weed plant in California, people say, Well, maybe that can control and you can see sometimes it really weakens the weeds. But the one reason that doesn't work here very well as it does in other places is the same reason why we can grow such great grapes and make great wines in California is because it doesn't rain in the summertime, if it rained in the summertime, like it does. In many other areas, that moisture level would stay up and we probably have a better chance of controlling Malba. We do use biological control of weeds in more landscape like range land type at large areas, but really on any kind of agricultural situation where we're looking at control in one spot, it really doesn't work that well. Even with star thistle we be talking about people wanting to put our application of of weevils for start thistle. Well, they're out there, and they're on a larger scale. So that's biological, much more important in entomology than in Weed Science, a chemical control, obviously, the use of chemicals, either conventional or organic chemicals or control. And then we have mechemical or cultural y