05/24/2026
Wet, cold, and recovering from a frost
This stretch has tested us for sure. We just took a frost — a real one — right when these young own-rooted vines were pushing tender new growth with everything to lose. And the weather hasn’t let up since: the rain keeps coming, temperatures are running cold, and the vines are now carrying frost-stressed tissue through it all. That matters, because cold-damaged tissue is weakened tissue, and weakened tissue is exactly what fungal pathogens wait for. Add leaf surfaces that stay wet for hours in this cool, damp air, and you’ve got the perfect setup for powdery mildew, downy mildew, and the rest of the usual suspects to move in.
So here’s our move at the farm: we’re spraying Pinion by — and we want to be clear about what that is. Pinion isn’t a conventional fungicide. It’s a minimum-risk (FIFRA 25(b)) biocontrol, designed to protect the leaf surface from a wide range of fungal pathogens without disrupting the plant microbiome. That distinction is everything to us. We’ve spent two years building living biology in this vineyard, and we’re not about to torch it to win one wet week.
Here’s how it earns its place when the vines are already worn down by frost and moisture: Pinion creates an inhospitable environment for disease-causing organisms, helping the crop resist new infections and suppressing the pressure that’s already there. And the part that matters most coming off a cold event like this — it activates the plant’s own immune pathways, triggering a systemic response. A vine recovering from frost on one side and fending off fungus on the other needs its own defenses switched on, not just a film sitting on the leaf.
This is regenerative disease management when the weather turns mean. Protect the surface, wake up the plant, keep the microbiome intact — and respect the soil and the community we grow for. The frost did what it did. The recovery is up to us. 🍇
regenerativefarmin
