Our grapes look like they will be ready soon. Mom and dad planted a half dozen varieties and they are all growing together on the same trellis/fence, which i’m thinking is great for cross pollination potential.
I don’t know much about grapes, but am already finding myself spitting out and saving seeds from the store bought ones. As usual google is not giving me satisfactory answers to my questions. Im finding the typical discouraging responses, such as “Grapes are never grown from seed.”
So, I am wondering if any of you have tried growing and adapting grapes from seed for your garden/farm settings.
Can grape seeds be dried and/or frozen and still remain viable?
How would you go about saving the seeds for purpose of landracing, and possibly even sharing?
Are there any decent freebie resources you all might be able to recommend to study up on grape cultivation?
Grapes need resistance to phylloxera as there was an event in Europe that wiped out 80 or 90% of their vines. American grapes have this resistance so all grapes are typically grafted onto American rootstocks.
Undoubtedly this is a direct problem from lack of diversity and a reduction in names varieties vineyards are allowed to use by regulation, or want to use in their wines.
I think this is a great idea for a project but don’t have many answers for you. I tried growing grapes from seed last year but failed to get any to germinate. I will have to try and research germination practices and try again.
My father also planted a single grapevine here but I doubt I’ll get any grapes. The vine looks terrible due to powdery mildew.
Georgia is the centre of diversity for grapes from what I can tell. I’m sure there would be many interesting varieties or possible land races there if anyone could possibly get any seeds haha.
They volunteer for me. Might be old French rootstock which took over, the grapes are small and sour. I give them a chance anyway. Once established can see if they can be grafted onto
Look into T.V munson’s grapes he bred American grapes with seeds that are phylloxera immune while still being resistant to other diseases like pierces disease etc
I wonder how often we are told, a thing is not, or can not, be done, simply because someone does not wish for us to do it. The wild grapes are obviously grown from seed the birds plant, and would be frozen over winter. They come up everywhere here. They are very sour, but I discovered by accident one year that after they have been frosted (or maybe frozen) they turn nice and sweet. The fruits are tiny, though. Hmmm, I might pick up a couple more grape vines and plant next to my rampant wild grape, just to see what happens. They can be had fairly inexpensively at the farm store in spring, admitting the quality is proportional to the price. It will be a low input project, for sure, plant them and see if they live. I’m also, hopefully, going to prune my wild grape as if it were a domestic grape, and see if the fruit size improves. And have now completely exhausted my entire knowledge of grapes!