"Botulism is rare, but it's a horrible way to go. I don't know about the 50% treatable figure, but do you really want a 50-50 chance of dying by slow suffocation? And of the 50% who recovered, how many had lasting effects like blindness or partial paralysis? Even if most made complete recoveries, did it require months in ICU? Not something I'd like to risk, so I follow the USDA/NCHFP recommended processes." ajsmama, This is the type of warnings repeated on the Harvest forum. It's these terrifying sensationalized descriptions that are given without proper context of how extremely rare the poisonings occur, or how completely idiotic one must be in handling their food, which unduly frighten people. For example, you mentioned two cases of salsa poisoning occuring in the 1990s. What you didn't mention is that the two cases of salsa poisoning were from uncanned raw salsa which was stored in airtight containers at room temperature. See CDC report below. "It's not contracted by eating a bad burrito" It can be contracted by eating a bad burrito stored in a sealed container at room temperature. Refried beans are one of the more common means of C. perfringens poisoning, but can also grow C. botulinum. There was one case b/t 1990-2000 of botulism from a burrito. Again see link below. "While it could be considered that all the cases were caused by someone doing something "idiotic", I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. How are you going to know that something is "idiotic" (or risky) unless you learn what the safe processes are? And it keeps changing" I stand by my statement that people contracting botulism are doing completely nonsensical things with their food most of the time (except where people contracted botulism from restaurant food - in which case others were doing nonsensical things with their food). The CDC report below describes botulism cases. In many cases these foods were simply cooked and set in air tight containers, or not cooked at all. Things like not refrigerating low acidic foods that were not canned is the most common. I think idiotic is a fair assessment of that kind of food handling practice. The problem with the Harvest forum is that some of its participants take these outlandish food handling practices which have produced botulism and extrapolated the dangers to minor deviations of the USDA canning recipes. For example, I was told it's unsafe to use citric acid to acidify salsa because the USDA canning recipe doesn't mention using it for salsa (even though it is mentioned as an acidifier for tomatoes). The only reason given was that it wasn't in the USDA booklet. It seemed no rational thought was applied to the circumstance. Part of my frustration is that I want to dialog with people on a forum who are not afraid to use their brain (Not an accusation against ajsmama.) If I want someone to simply parrot the "USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning", I can read the manual myself. On that forum, people have been told their properly acidified food is unsafe for extremely minor reasons. Anything can be couched in language to make it seem dangerous, when the real risk is non-existent. When you try to discuss these things over on the Harvest forum, you typically get the response "Do it at your own risk". Another subtle response to frighten people. What's missing in these discussions on the Harvest forum is a sense of perspective. I'll offer a farmer's analogy. I had to do some welding on my stainless steel spray tank the day before yesterday. People are occasionally electrocuted to death from arc welders. I wear welding gloves most of the time, but when welding on the sprayer tank, I didn't wear gloves. At this point, I can hear the folks on the Harvest forum in my mind (applying their rationale to welding): Unsafe! Do you realize you could be electrocuted without gloves? There were X number of cases of electrocution accidents from welding in the last decade. Do you really want to take a chance with incurring a serious electrocution injury, or experience a horrible death from electrocution? I might point out most electrocution deaths from welders are from bare or badly worn leads and involve water. My tank was empty and the ground dry. Their was no chance I would have been electrocuted (I mostly wear gloves to protect my hands from molten slag.) Their response, "Do it at your own risk." Interestingly, I tried to have a intellectually stimulating discussion about this very topic on the Harvest forum. One of the regulars over there told me (not once, but repeatedly) to leave the forum. I wasn't rude to anyone. It was strange, like they were brain-washed and didn't want to discuss anything that might question the USDA canning guide. Here is a link that might be useful: Foodborne Botulism in the U.S. 1990-2000

I was thinking scale too...hard to tell with the poor focus. Black aphids. No matter, if the grapes are past season you could just let them have their fill pooping out what will eventually dry up anyway. This would also feed the predators bound to show up. Alternatively, hit them with a hose to dislodge. Follow up if they return (or if a stream of water fails to dislodge them which would be diagnostic) in a couple of weeks with insecticidal soap. edit: If this (these) are first year grape vines then it is worth battling for them. With first year you want as much sugars made as possible to help establish those roots, so removing feeders makes sense. Grape are so good at establishing that after a year the vine should be able to withstand a large amount of predation and I generally wouldn't bother. This post was edited by Fascist_Nation on Wed, Jul 23, 14 at 17:34

Hi Wes, I do not have an answer for you, but you should try over on the Fruit forum. There is also a Winery forum (forget the name). Those people will probably be able to answer your questions. Renee Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit Forum

I grow grapes (muscadines) here in south Florida on factory made steel trellis that are powder coated against the weather. Down here wood (even PT) and galvanized steel aren't an option due to rust and rot... so much water here :-) Up in New York my Dad used powder coated steel fence posts made for wire fences but used stainless wire strung between the posts. I don't think in the 20+ odd years I was visiting there he had a rust or support problem.