Late hanging mustang 10-20-12

John found this near the Trinity river. He thinks these late hanging mustangs are fairly common.

John reports:
"Plenty juicy but past prime for sure.

When mustang grapes are crushed they literally have a musty smell. Within two days they smell intensely fruity and as the pulp breaks down, they release a lot of juice. I think dry grapes are just pulpy and need to break down in fermentation."

FM 875 clusters 9-22-12

2012 October Grape Plan 1a

This is the current status of our plan. We've tried to start with the end in mind: an October ripening wine grape for North Texas. That seems a fine goal, but a bit distant and unreal. For now, a practical goal might be merely a set of crosses (most likely cinerea x vinifera) that ripen in October, produce measurable amounts of juice and allow a reasonable body of evidence that we are on the road to a North-Texas October wine grape.

Rich had a 2nd leaf Bridlegate cinerea cross put out berries this year. The berries ripened in early-August. On August 18th, Rich wrote, "I got 6 Bridlegate X Mourvedre berries, with one seed/berry. The raisins tasted good, but not enough juice to get a Brix reading." On July 25th, I was able to taste one of the berries. It had much more juice than a cinerea, and the taste was remarkably neutral, especially when compared with the Munson varieties that were ripening at about the same time. This represents limited, but concrete evidence that we can delay vinifera ripening dates by using cinerea crosses, and still maintain a neutral taste.

Of course, our 1st cross to produce berries was far from an October ripening berry. Its ripening date fell into approximately the same time frame as many Munson crosses. Thus, we have no evidence that we can push the ripening dates to October. For the below forecast, I've assumed that 5% of the crosses will have cinerea like ripening dates. 95% will have ripening dates that more closely approach the vinifera ripening date. Still, with about 500 cinerea x vinifera crosses it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect 25 with early October ripening dates.

I've picked a 2017 milestone of 25 'October ripening crosses' as a key decision point. By the time we have 25, we should be able to assess the likelihood that at least one of these crosses has a future as a wine grape. 2017 may seem a long way off, but this is a very slow process. Consider today's request for cuttings. If the cuttings take, we may get an opportunity to create crosses in 2015. The seeds produced cannot be expected to provide berries for evaluation in 2018, a year after my 2017 decision point. Obviously, 2017 is at best a preliminary review date. The project only succeeds if we can enroll others to keep the goal alive.

The forecast was created by reviewing the short history of our efforts. The first cross was done in 2010. In 2011, we planted the first seedlings. In 2012, we had many seedlings over waist high, and one 2nd leaf seedling produces a small, sweet, neutral tasting berry.

2012 National Plant Germplasm System request.

After some discussion with Rich, I've submitted my 2012 National Plant Germplasm System request.

Here is the list:
DVIT 2963 - Vitis cinerea var. cinerea - 5489 - Texas, U
PI 588210 - Vitis cinerea var. helleri - B 65-7 - Texas,
PI 588216 - Vitis cinerea var. helleri - Resseguier 2 - Texas,
PI 101865 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Honigber - Morocco
DVIT 360 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Black Morocco
PI 63409 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - DVIT 2044 - Algeria
DVIT 2426 - Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris - DVIT 2426 - Tunisia
PI 98190 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Olivette Blanche - Tunisia
DVIT 463 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Muscat Bowood - Egypt
PI 171177 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Itonychi Mavro - Greece
PI 171292 - Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera - Bakari Mavro - Greece

The request has some thought provoking questions, so I thought it might be useful to post my answers here. First, the NPGS requires agreement to the following statement:  "The accessions within the NPGS are available in small quantities for research and education purposes only."

OK, I don't see a conflict, but what 'research or education' do I see following this?

I really haven't given 'education' much thought. Perhaps we need to invite high school kids over to see what we are doing. Preparing an afternoon program for high school students would certainly be a worth while project. Additionally, I can easily imagine having an educational day on 'organic' grape growing. Of course, this would require some working definition of 'organic growing practices', but anything is possible. As for research, that is easily satisfied by posting the ripening dates of new crosses here.

Continuing with the process, the NPGS request form asks: "Describe your planned research use of this NPGS Germplasm: (Information on your results is expected to be provided at the conclusion of your research).

To this, I answered: "We are creating cinerea, vinifera crosses.  Conventional wine grapes grown in North/Central Texas ripen in August. We hope these crosses will ripen in October. We are posting updates on our research at http://texasoctobergrapes.blogspot.com/."

After three weeks of harvesting tobacco horned worms, the caterpillars are gone. Looks like I have a lot of powdery mildew, and some black rot. Even the mustangs are covered with it (whatever it is). I need to get out with a microscope and take some photos. Keeping vines healthy from March until October may be a challenge There is lots of time for fungus to take hold. Couderic 1202 (Mourvedre x V. rupestris 'Martin') x op is noticeable more new growth (last 2 weeks) than anything else.

Wild Mother Vines: We are using 6 cinerea females. 2 or 3 probably have cordifolia in their background. 2 ripen around Nov 1, the rest around October 1st. Several have excellent taste. None produce much juice. They are not too hard to find, but you need to be local to catch them ripening and get a date. There is a vine that is about 40 minutes away that I watch. I've seen it set fruit for 3 years, but never been able to catch it with ripe fruit. We have had very good luck rooting cuttings this year. Several wild seedlings should produce flowers next year. With luck we will get some females.

Seed day

Today was my third annual 'seed day'. On seed day, spend the early morning with Rich and collect the seeds I'll germinate this winter. I always bring the seeds into the office and tell anyone who will listen what fun it is to breed grapes. I'm always in a great mood. It's a great day.

Rich, standing in his seedling nursery among peppers, eggplants.  His vineyard is in the background. Future October grapes in the foreground.

Wondering about Lenoir's pedigree

I'm thinking about Lenoir's pedigree because I've tasted 3 wild cinerea in the past few days. They reminded me of Lenoir. Additionally, I've got a cross from Cliff Ambers that seemed a lot like Lenoir. I need to understand Lenoir better, especially if cinerea a big part in Lenoir's pedigree. Here is what Cliff Ambers had to say about the Lenoir pedigree:

"Jancis Robinson pegs it as aestivalis X vinifera, which I largely agree with except that Georgia aestivalis is as mixed up as it is anywhere. Out on the Piedmont where the bourquiniana came from, the aestis are Munson's southern type which are interbred with the cinerea var. floridana that runs up and down the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. So, I would give it as: aestivalis (with some cinerea in its pedigree) X vinifera I have produced many bourquiniana types like Lenoir and Herbemont from aestivalis X vinifera and aestivalis X labruscana crosses. More are like Herbemont in color because the Blue Ridge/Ohio aestis I tend to use are not mixed with cinerea. Aaron Puhala's Buxton, NC, aestivalis seedlings are southern aestivalis type and should give dark skinned seedlings. I'll let you know in a couple years as I made lots of crosses with them in 2011 that I planted this year. Two were crosses back to cinerea and those seedlings are still in perfect condition and look more like cinerea than aestivalis (although you can still make out the waxy leaf undersides). I've also grown VA Coastal Plain cinerea seed and found aestivalis hybrids in the seedlings. The wild grapes are not pure, unmixed species, but constantly intermingling and producing options for evolutionary favor. They tend to separate because of bloom times, but there are plenty of opportunities out there for cross pollination.

Rich's Bridlegate and John Barnett's FM 875 were both about 26 brix and maybe a bit over ripe. Bridlegate berries were less than .3", but FM 875 were about .4". That's a big difference. Bridlegate was very neutral, but FM 875 had a slight herbaceous under-tone. If I thought about it, I could imagine bananas, but it took a while. Not particularly attractive, but we did eat a bunch of them. The Plainview cinerea was still very tart (brix was only 20), and probably 3 weeks from being ripe. Anyway, we are already tasting Texas grapes in October. With luck, we will be improving the October selection in the coming years.

Picking up John's cinerea seeds

I met John Barnett and his son Brandon to pick-up cinerea x vinifera seeds for myself and Rich Ellison. In the below picture, you can see the bags of seeds. We also tasted the Plainview and FM 875 cinerea. 26 brix on the FM 875 cinerea, with a nice fruity taste, with a banana hint, that pleasantly lingered on the palate. FM 875 has a lot more juice than Plainview. I had to squeeze about 10 berries to be able to get a brix reading (around 20). Both sets of berreies were picked on 10/3/12. Plainview wasn't really ripe, yet.

2012 seedling list

2012 seedling list in Glen Rose: (click to enlarge)

2012 seedling list in Fairview (click to enlarge)

This is what some of them looked like 9/3/12.