Wine Industry Newsletter

Protect your industry – identify and report grape pests

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MyPestGuide Grapes app – for identifying and reporting pests and diseases of grapes is now available free from Google Play and iTunes.

The establishment and spread of destructive pests and diseases continues to be a concern for the grape industry. With increasing international trade and tourism, the threat of exotic pests or diseases making their way to Western Australia is real. The capacity to efficiently deal with such issues is enhanced by early detection.

Early detection relies on good surveillance but broad scale surveillance is very costly. Community surveillance, utilising grape growers, their families, those working in the grape industry and the general community, can be a much more efficient method if well organised. Surveillance and reporting has to be relatively simple to encourage activity and all reports need to be verified to ensure integrity.

The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) has developed and released MyPestGuide Grapes which is an identification and reporting tool that focusses on wine, table and dried grape pests and diseases.

MyPestGuide Grapes is an easy to use application, designed for mobile devices, that helps you identify pests and diseases on your grapevines and allows quick reporting, recording and mapping. All reports sent in are verified and responded to, thereby ensuring integrity.

Learn more about pests and diseases of grapevines, including more common pests, biosecurity threats and beneficial organisms. The app includes images, descriptions and basic control information. Pests and diseases can be searched by damage caused or pest description. It can be personalised with your favourite pests and will operate outside of mobile or Wi-Fi reception once installed.

MyPestGuide Grapes is designed for use by commercial growers, consultants and small scale growers alike.

MyPestGuide Grapes is the latest member of the MyPestGuide suite, joining MyPestGuide Crops and MyPestGuide Reporter. The MyPestGuide app development is part of the Boosting Biosecurity Defences project led by DAFWA and made possible by Royalties for Regions.

When combined with MyPestGuide Reporter, MyPestGuide Grapes becomes a powerful surveillance tool where both industry and the community can become many eyes or ‘pest detectives’ in the lookout for exotic biosecurity threats. Such threats could reduce the viability of our grape industries by increasing the cost of production, affecting market access, or reducing the capacity to grow grapevines completely.

All growers of grapevines are encouraged to report any pests and diseases seen on grapevines using the app. This helps to not only build a picture of the incidence of existing pests and diseases, but also creates confidence and normality in the use of the apps so should an unknown pest or disease be seen, reporting will be automatic.

To make a pest report online or view verified reports on a map, visit mypestguide.agric.wa.gov.au

Download the apps and start identifying and reporting pests and diseases on your grapevines now!

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