The Vineyard Advisor Mobile Application for Pest Management Recommendations

The Vineyard Advisor mobile application was designed to provide up-to-date recommendations on disease and pest management for commercial grape production, including the most current federal pesticide labels. For a given grape disease or pest, the Vineyard Advisor delivers management recommendations following a standardized format with the following sections: Problem name; When to take action; Cultural management practices; Organic materials; Registered pesticides; and References. Recommendations are derived from published resources including viticulture books and Extension pest management guides from several states.  Current federal pesticide labels are retrieved from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) using a modification of the system employed by the Mobile Access to Pesticides and Labels tool produced by the National Pesticide Information Center. The Vineyard Advisor operates both as a standalone product and as an optional resource linked from the Vineyard Doctor diagnostic system. As a standalone app, it can be used by a vineyard manager who has observed a disease problem; for example, to look up the recommended cultural practices to manage the disease as well as a list of pesticide products labeled for control of that specific disease on grapes. The pesticide product is linked to PDF files of the most current national product labels. Alternatively, the vineyard manager could use the app to search directly for a specific pesticide product labeled for grapes. This feature is particularly valuable as changes occur in pesticide product availability or directions-for-use. The Vineyard Advisor pesticide label database is updated in concert with EPA updates to their database, which typically occur on a weekly schedule. The Vineyard Advisor also seamlessly integrates with the Vineyard Doctor diagnostic system, through the Problem Profile pages of the Vineyard Doctor.  An example of this use would be a vineyard manager using the Vineyard Doctor to identify an insect problem in the vineyard, and following the management recommendations link on the Problem Profile to the corresponding insect management recommendations page on the Vineyard Advisor.  The scope of vineyard problems for which the Vineyard Advisor provides management recommendations fully coincides with the 150+ problems within the Vineyard Doctor system, and additionally provides weed management recommendations including links to herbicide labels. The Vineyard Advisor app is functional across several platforms, including multiple internet browsers, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.