Eggs On My Grapevines

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Permalink Reply by Powell Gammill on August 27, 2012 at 4:33pm

BT - Kurdistani is unlikely to ever develop resistant varieties.  It works like swallowing razor blades as the "toxin's" rhomboid crystal structure slices open the guts of larvae that FEED on leaves containing the bacteria that contain the crystals and they digest themselves to death. Don't feed on my plants, don't die.

(All BT "toxin" works the same way but is highly species form specific.  This limits its killing to a limited number of species and therefor has appeal). 

It's biggest drawback is it takes 2-4 days of eating before die off.  Heavy infestations can destroy crop or even the plant by then.  BT is best applied at the beginning of the hatching. 

I learned my lesson and when I found a new vine being hit just 3 days ago I applied spinosad (a "organic" neurotoxin) late in the day and all caterpillars were paralyzed and most unhappy the next morning.  1/3 of the leaves were left and the vine survived.  Earlier this year several were not so lucky.  While I do not particularly mind a certain amount of predation at some point if the infestation is heavy enough you either take drastic steps or lose your plants. 

Spinosad will broadly kill larval forms but has the "advantage" (to me---others don't like it since it has no staying power, but I figure I've done my killing I don't need anything else to die that comes along later.)  of breaking down rapidly in sunlight.

I know of no natural predators to skeletinizers---even the adults are toxic.  Believe me I wish I did.

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Permalink Reply by Powell Gammill on August 27, 2012 at 5:35pm

Alright there are 2 identified predators: Ametadoria misella (Sturmia harrisinae) a tachinid fly parasite that lays its eggs in 4th stage Harrisina brillians larvae and Apanteles harrisinae, a tiny parasitic wasp that prefers laying eggs in the 1st stage larvae.  Sure would be nice to find something that likes to devour skeletinizer's eggs.

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Permalink Reply by Dianne Felder on August 27, 2012 at 10:04pm

Hi Powell,

Thank you for all the great info. The "eggs" in the picture did actually turn out to be sugar drops. They were random in placement and size. However, I do get the skeletonizer worms. I think I will get some spinosad. Do you have a local source or is it available online? I have until next Spring before I need to use it.
On the other hand, my vines were hit hard by white fly followed by a heavy infestation of leaf hoppers. Usually this time of year the vines are green and growing but they are both either dead or dormant looking already. I got some white fly sticky traps that work for leaf hoppers too but it was too late. I plan on spraying the vines really good before they set fruit next year and nip all this in the bud. LOL

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Permalink Reply by Leanne on August 28, 2012 at 7:14am

I got really bad leafhoppers this year, too, and my vines look awful.  I forgot about the sticky traps, might have to give them a try.

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Permalink Reply by Ericka on April 2, 2011 at 12:30pm

Honestly, these do not look like eggs to me. They are not uniform in size.

Looks like sugar drops, like the vine is weeping moisture out and it is drying.

Leafhoppers lay on the undersides of leaves, see this link: Bug Guide

Your vines look good and healthy, and so I would watch and see if you can see anything come out of these things. Plants are designed to take a bit of bug abuse ;)

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Permalink Reply by Gerry on April 2, 2011 at 1:07pm

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Permalink Reply by Dianne Felder on April 2, 2011 at 7:06pm

Wow, I never heard of that, nor have I ever seen it before on my grapes. They are only on the thicker faster growing stems and there are none on the leaves. Naturally I jumped to offensive critters since they suddenly appeared and I had that infestation of skeletanizers a couple of years ago but never saw the eggs, just the worms after they hatched.

I'll keep my eye on these to see what happens. I did hose them off again yesterday and there are more again today.

Also, there are a few tiny white things flying around the vines when I am inspecting them and that's why I thought they might be leaf hoppers. I've never heard of them before either. Boy am I naive. LOL

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Permalink Reply by Gerry on April 2, 2011 at 7:37pm

In the Bordeaux region of France, it's called "Les Vignes Pleurent" , The Vines Cry. Also in the spring after sap seeps out from the pruning cuts. The tiny white things could be whitefly, nasty little bugs.

Managing Whitefly

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Permalink Reply by jeff lauffer on April 5, 2011 at 9:21pm

I think Gerry's got it right. I have had this on my Okra. At first glance I thought the photo was of an okra plant. Seems to me you just have a healthy plant producing sap that will in turn give you juicy sweet grapes.  There is fruit in the background of the pic. Have you squished the droplets between your fingers to see how they react. What I wonder is if something is feeding of the plant and creating small wounds that are leaking sap?

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Permalink Reply by Dianne Felder on April 6, 2011 at 3:35pm

Hi Jeff,

Well, after watching these things for a few days, I'm going along with Gerry on the "grape pearl" idea. They just seem to dry up, but also new ones pop out.

I too think the little white things are white fly, just a few right now. I did also find some eggs yesterday on the back of a leaf so figure I might as well give a light spraying of Bt and nip the problem in the bud, especially since there are much few leaves to spray right now than there will be later. 

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Montgomery on August 11, 2011 at 10:39am

Thank you! I've been searching the internet to identify these pretty little pearls. They just didn't seem threatening to me.

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Permalink Reply by Powell Gammill on August 27, 2012 at 4:48pm

Very cool Gerry.  Learned something new and I am pretty sure I spotted these on my neighbor's mature vines.  I too have been keeping an eye on them ot see what emerges.  Now I won't be puzzled if nothing comes out.

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