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Grape powdery mildew app goes global

Grape growers and winemakers around the world will be able to easily assess powdery mildew in the field with the help of a mobile application just released globally.

PMapp, which supports decisions about grape quality, has been developed by the University of Adelaide in close collaboration with the Australian grape and wine sector, and supported by Wine Australia.

“Powdery mildew is a serious disease that affects grapevines worldwide and can cause off flavours and aromas in wine if it is not controlled,” says project leader Eileen Scott, professor of plant pathology at the University of Adelaide’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.

“It’s a costly disease for wine sectors across the world through loss of yield and cost of control and, because of the serious quality issues for wine, there is little tolerance of powdery mildew in the winery. But it’s hard to assess – the symptoms can be hard to distinguish from dust or spray residue.

“PMapp is a simple tool that facilitates efficient assessment and recording of the severity and incidence of powdery mildew.”

A local version of PMapp was released in Australia in December 2015 and proved its worth for the grape and wine community during the 2016 Australian vintage. It has now been made available to download outside Australia.

Powdery mildew is assessed in the vineyard as the percentage surface area of grape bunches affected, which gives a measure of disease severity. PMapp allows the user to visually assess the severity by matching it with computer-generated images.

The app allows assessors to enter disease data quickly in the vineyard, email the results and then analyze the resulting spreadsheet, which records GPS coordinates and other details of the assessment.

There is also a suite of online resources to support PMapp. This can be used to train or up-skill wine sector personnel and students to recognize powdery mildew symptoms and estimate disease severity.

Dr. Liz Waters – Wine Australia’s general manager of research, development and extension – says that PMapp is a valuable tool for the grape and wine community.

“The PMapp and training website developers have taken the findings of this comprehensive research project funded by Wine Australia and produced two useable tools for the wine sector,” she says.

The PMapp is now available on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. The online resources can be found at pmassessment.com.au.