The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is doing Zoom meetings on Mondays and Thursdays in response to “social distancing” mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Submitted Photo

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chautauqua County’s Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is pleased to announce that they are now offering virtual office hours. During this time of social distancing due to COVID-19 it is important that the grape growers in our region can still come with questions and we will be able to give answers to help with this 2020 growing season. There are not a lot of things staying the same lately, and the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is just hoping to offer a little bit of stability in these fast-changing times.

The extension team has scheduled hours on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon and Thursdays from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. During these hours you can join the already in progress Zoom meeting for as long as you need to get some questions answered. The team consists of Jennifer Phillips Russo, LERGP Viticulture Extension Specialist, Kevin Martin, Business Management Specialist, Andy Muza, Extension Educator, along with occasional specialists like Dr. Terry Bates, senior research associate and director of the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory, and Bryan Hed, Plant Pathology Research Technologist. The team is planning to continue to hold these meetings until we are able to meet face to face again. We encourage all grape growers with questions to come and ask! The growing season will not wait, and we know there will be questions.

For information on how to connect to the meetings you can go to https://lergp.cce.cornell.edu/events.php or http://lergp.com/

If you are having difficulties accessing these meetings, please contact Kevin Martin at kmm52@psu.edu. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is a cooperative effort between Cornell and Penn State Universities; the participating Cornell Cooperative Extension Associations of Chautauqua, Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus Counties in New York and Erie County in Pennsylvania; and participating industry partners National Grape Cooperative (Welch’s), Constellation Brands and Walkers Fruit Basket. The LERGP extension team provides research-based educational programming for commercial grape growers throughout the year at venues across the Lake Erie grape belt. For more information on LERGP, call 716-792-2800 or visit our website at http://lergp.cce.cornell.edu/

The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is one of many programs offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chautauqua County (CCE-Chautauqua). CCE-Chautauqua is a community based educational organization, affiliated with Cornell University, Chautauqua County Government, the NYS SUNY system, and the federal government through the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. For more information, call 716-664-9502 or visit our website at www.cce.cornell.edu/chautauqua. Cornell University Cooperative Extension provides equal program and employment opportunities.