Dogs have been trained to detect viruses in citrus ranches, invasive mussels on lakes and bombs in war zones—so why not lend their skills to grapevine disease detection?
The four new detector dogs are part of a pilot project that recently concluded canines can detect vine mealybugs and leafroll viruses and do so economically. The trial was funded with a $428,111 grant from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.
Stephanie Bolton, grower research and education director and sustainable winegrowing director at Lodi Winegrape Commission, presented the results of the pilot project at the at the annual Sustainable Ag Expo & International Sustainable Winegrowing Summit Nov. 11-12 in San Luis Obispo. About 500 people attended the symposium.
Prevention is the cheapest and smartest way to maintain the health of vineyards, Bolton reminded the audience.
The working dogs in the pilot project have different tasks. Malbec, a Black Labrador, and Sauvi B, an English Springer Spaniel, hunt for mealybugs. Cab, a German Shorthaired Pointer and Zinny, another English Springer Spaniel, detect leafroll virus.
The detector canines detected leafroll 3 viruses on average 93.4% of the time, according to the pilot project. The dogs also ruled out the presence of the virus nearly 100% of the time. They detected the presence of vine mealybugs 97.3% of the time and rule out an infection nearly 100% of the time.
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