In September, Vinehealth Australia attended an Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Summit in Adelaide, to improve our understanding of fungicide resistance in South Australian vineyards.
The AMR Summit was convened by the Cooperative Research Centre for Solving Antimicrobial Resistance in Agribusiness, Food, and Environments (CRC SAAFE) which is a multi-disciplined approach to finding solutions to AMR.
Fungicide resistance is a developing problem with mutant fungal diseases resistant to existing single site fungicides already found in Australian vineyards. This can lead to diseases no longer being controlled, wasted money on fungicides and costs associated with treatment, and potential crop losses from rejected grapes.
While “growers overwhelmingly conformed to guidelines to prevent the development of fungicide resistance” there remains a portion of the disease population that survives and a smaller portion of that that will develop mutant genes and become resistant to fungicides in use, leading to resistance.
Growers are encouraged to follow pesticide label instructions and optimise timing, target, treatment and technique.
Pesticide treatment is not the only tool in disease prevention as there are many cultural control practices that can be adopted to reduce fungal diseases, such as careful pruning to spread the crop load, avoiding bunches resting on bunches, open canopies to aid air flow and spray efficacy, careful nutrition management, irrigation scheduling to avoid over-watering, pest insect control, and vineyard floor management.
Grapegrowers are asked to rotate to other activity groups (modes of action) in line with pesticide labels, the AWRI Agrochemical Booklet restrictions on use for export grapes, and CropLife Resistance Management strategies.
Growers can also read about Wine Australia’s project managed by South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) aimed at Improving the understanding of fungicide resistance in Australian viticulture.
Additionally, AWRI is running a ‘Status of fungicide resistance in Australian vineyards and developing strategies for monitoring’ webinar on 24 October. Find out more and register here.
The CRC SAAFE expects to undertake and coordinate further research into a wholistic approach to AMR for agriculture.