Pinion

I used Pinion on Thompson Seedless grapes near Fresno CA. The mildew pressure was very high and I was a little nervous about results. The soil is very sandy and soil biology is not the best, lots of Roundup applied by past mangers. I loaded the machine with nutrition and Pinion and sprayed the vines. The first application at 2 quarts was challenged by the mildew. Two weeks later 3 quarts per acre and more nutrition seemed to considerably lower the mildew pressure. I am encouraged to try again next year.

Pinion is an organic game changer! We're just now (late September) starting to see our first signs of powdery mildew on our Atlantic giants. We didn't have a spec of powdery until this last week and we've been able to avoid using myclobutanil entirely. We've also been able to dodge downy mildew and decrease our pesticide use as a whole in the patch. The biggest win for me when it comes to pinion, is that we've also used it on our kids organic market garden. Their zucchini plants are still beautiful and were also powdery mildew free up until last week. We're talking zucchini plants that were started in May, have not been pruned, and don't have the best air circulation. Those plants should have collapsed from a snowstorm of powdery weeks ago. Our cucumbers are also doing quite well which is also unusual for this time of year. Typically they're most of the way dead by this time of year from disease and pests, but we aren't seeing that at all! We actually had one cucumber on a special plant that ended up being a state record!

We have used Pinion quite a bit this season on our roses both in the field and in propagation. Additionally i sent each of our employees home with a 1 liter spray bottle of pinion to get feedback on results with roses grown in various soils and locations. All of our team members who used pinion reported a significant reduction in black spot, canker, and powdery mildew, as well as downy mildew. In our field roses, i have seen significant decrease in powdery mildew and blackspot. Also, we had a significant infestation of thrips in mid spring; usually we would do several applications of neem or horticultural oil, but with pinion in the mix and utilizing SAP analysis to guide nutrition applications, we only applied one spray of horticultural oil along with nutrition products and Pinion. The thrip infestation was gone within a week and a half and I feel these results are the effect of targeted nutrition but also the redox balancing of the Pinion to stop the plant from sending signals to the thrips that the "buffet" is open. I am really excited to have such a product in our foliar arsenal since we collect our irrigation runoff in ponds from which we irrigate, so accumulation of fungicides, insecticides and herbicides is something i very much want/have to avoid. Pinion really helps to lower internal plant sap pH, as we have seen in SAP results, which has been a challenge for us to do since we have very high sodium and high bicarbonate in our well water that we use to refill the ponds and so also have high sodium and bicarb in our ponds as well. I really like having Pinion on hand for its disease suppression but also what it does for the plant SAP and redox as well as it acting like "scent camouflage" for our roses against pest insects. Not for Nothing, Pinion is also the best smelling product I have ever applied. It makes the propagation houses smell like red hots and the mix of blooming roses and cinnamon is fantastic!

We've used Pinion extensively this season on both export pepper crops and tobacco, with very positive results. This year brought extremely challenging weather conditions, creating significant disease pressure in our heirloom Capsicum chinense pepper varieties, which are genetically susceptible to bacterial leaf spot (Xanthomonas) as well as root and crown diseases associated with Phytophthora, Pythium, and Rhizoctonia. By the time we started using Pinion, I was honestly expecting to lose a significant portion of the crop. We began with two foliar applications at 1.75% v/v, followed by additional applications at 0.43% and later 0.23% v/v. Throughout the season, Pinion was tank mixed with various nutritional products including HaloPhos, Accelerate, CalGuard, MacroPak, Rebound Moly, Rebound Boron, Rebound Copper, and Rebound Iron. We maintained comparison blocks that received the same nutritional program but without Pinion. After approximately six weeks and six foliar applications, we observed what appeared to be complete suppression of bacterial leaf spot symptoms in treated areas. We also estimated an approximately 85% reduction in wilt associated with the Pythium, Rhizoctonia, and Phytophthora disease complex compared to untreated areas. On our tobacco crop, we experienced no significant fungal or bacterial issues throughout the season where Pinion was used. Interestingly, untreated areas developed aphid and beetle pressure, while treated areas remained largely free of insect issues, even in neighboring rows. We also observed consistently higher leaf Brix readings in treated plants versus controls, often ranging 20-50% higher depending on the block and timing of measurements. This suggests that beyond any antimicrobial effects, Pinion may also be contributing to improved plant vigor and photosynthetic performance under stressful growing conditions. We observed no foliar burn, phytotoxicity, or compatibility issues, even at the higher rates tested. Based on our experience, Pinion has become a valuable component of our crop management program. While this is only one season of experience and results will vary by operation, we believe it has helped improve plant health, reduce disease pressure, and increase crop resilience under exceptionally difficult weather conditions. We plan to continue using it and are particularly interested in evaluating drench applications next season for crown and root health management.

I used pinion in foliars on my loquats (along with other AEA nutrient products MacroPak, micropak) and the new growth came out beautiful and clean. The loquat trees had fire blight and all the new growth leaves had burned tips until the pinion applications. After about 5 weeks there was clean new growth on the treated trees. The untreated trees still had burned tips on new growth at that time. (Loquat isn’t an option under crops but I grow citrus too so I selected citrus)

Pinion is a newly registered product in California, and I assume most of the rest of the country, so most of the field trial results are going to be on a trial basis. I am a wine grape grower in Southern California I tested pinion in a Muscat vineyard with a history of consistent powdery mildew and Botrytis. I could not acquire a sample until later in the season when I already had high powdery mildew pressure. Out of a 1.5-acre vineyard we tested pinion on 6 rows spraying at the same time as pristine, which I consider a pretty aggressive synthetic fungicide. The reduction in powdery mildew was faster and more consistent than the chemical fungicides I used and out of the six rows it was hard to find any powdery mildew. The rest of the block needed to keep receiving additional powdery mildew treatments including Milstop, Serenade, Oxidate, and Pristine. Although it was a limited trial Pinion outperformed everything so consistently on initial application and had the longest residual efficacy of any product I have used. I was so impressed with the performance that I am expanding this year from six rows to 80 acres. Wish me luck and stay tuned if this works on the rest of the acreage as well as it did on this trial plot this will be a game changer. Greg Pennyroyal