Indoor Grapevine - Best Antifungal/Mildew Care?

Hello

I’m a complete novice gardener, so all/any help appreciated on this matter, thanks!

I have a very old grape vine that is growing in my conservatory. The root is planted outside and the vine comes through the wall and grows up around inside of the roof.



I’ve owned the house for 20 years and the vine has been there well before that and most years the vine produces a good amount of grapes, but they are always covered in powdery mildew.

Also, a couple of years back these strange spores which looked almost like alien eggs were all over quite substantial sections of it.

I gave it quite a brutal pruning a few months back and have cleaned all the dead leaves away and cut off any dead shoots, so this seems like a good time to start treating the vine before it starts to leaf again, so...

What do I do?

I’m thinking some sort of pump-pressure sprayer and some type of diluted mixture...but I don’t know what?

The anti-fungus spray products you can buy won’t be cost effective if I have to spray regularly, so a concentrate that I dilute and out in a sprayer seems the best option.

It’s highly unlikely the grapes will be eaten, but they do look very pretty (prettier still without the Mildred no doubt!), so I’d like to look after the vine as best I can.

An organic product would be nice, but I know beggars can’t be choosers!

Thanks so much!

Jon

 

OK, just guessing, the alien spores, were they on the shoots early in the year, and did they disappear later in the season, kind of like translucent spherical objects.
If so, they are normal on vines in the early summer, not totally sure what causes it but they are not a problem, dont reach for the sprayer.

Powdery mildew is quite common late in the season, you could perhaps prevent it by watering the root area during dry spells.
Its quite large and will be dragging up lost of moisture, maybe a more humid atmosphere could help also.

 

Hi Pete

Thanks for getting back to me; much appreciated.

Great tip on watering the root as I have never actually watered the root and just let the rain do it’s work.

As for the spores; they were shaped more like tiny slugs and were green/grey ~ Sticky to the touch and sticky/gooey when touched...kind of unpleasant. And there were loads of them. I didn’t think to take a picture at the time

I’ll see whether they return this year.

So I don’t need to spray the vine with any sort of modern/acceptable equivalent to Bordeaux mixture or anything then?

Thanks,

Jon

 

Well I wouldn't spray it without good reason, I know they say prevention is better than cure, but without knowing exactly what the spores are it's difficult to know what to use.
Did the spores appear to cause any problems?
As to the powdery mildew, you could try spraying with diluted milk, it seems to work, although don't ask me how.
But wait until you see the first signs.

 

Thanks again - I’ve heard of people spraying with diluted milk, so I’ll give that a go rather than a chemical.

It’s hard to say whether the spores did any damage; as soon as I spotted them (the house was rented out so they could have been there for months) I just cut every shoot or small limb back.

They didn’t seem to appear on the main stem/trunk of the vine.

We shall see whether they make a return this year!

Thanks again Pete, much appreciated.