light frost 11-1-14

As I write, Opossom Hollow is reporting 30.4 F, and the temperature can drop for the next 30 minutes.  Ice was clearly visible on the Ranger cab.  I covered the citrus at 6 AM when the reported temp was 34.  As usual, the forecast low was almost 10 degrees higher. (39).

Chalk Mountain cinerea blooms in the vineyard

'Chalk Mountain cinerea seedling 'w'.  The photo was taken 5/28/14.  The flowers were pollinated with 'Regent'.  We have had two Chalk Mountain cinerea females bloom for the first time.

Breeding for 2014 should be over in a day or two.

Frost event 4-15-14

We had a fairly hard frost this morning. The low at nearby Opossum Hollow was 25.5.  My measurements on frost events in the vineyard generally come in a bit lower, but I didn't have any instruments out this morning.

Here is what the temps looked like (click to expand):

Sunday night, I counted 14 crosses with developing flowers.  This evening, there were only 3.  Two of the survivors were cinerea crosses. The third looks like is has a cinerea pedigree, but the parents are unknown.

Below is a good example the cinerea style 'frost response'.  It parents were Bridlegate Cinerea and Mourvedre.  Note the surviving inflorescence and swelling bud.  Neither show much damage.  Further up the cane, a number of growth points were completely toasted, but the vine had not entirely budded out and ought to produce a crop.   I didn't notice any swelling bud damage.

Cinerea crosses are the only vines with buds still in the 'swelling' phase.

Bridlegate Cinerea x Mourvedre (click to expand):

The photo demonstrates 2 frost adaptations cinerea seems to exhibit: 1) resilience to sub-freezing surface temperatures, and 2) variation in bud burst timing, producing a sequence of bud-burst dates, insuring late frosts cannot wipe out the vine's ability to produce fruit.

The local cinerea had the least damage.  Paluxy cinerea did better than Chalk Mountain cinerea,  The original Paluxy cinerea was found on the river bank, just half a mile up stream.  The original Chalk Mountain cinerea was found about 20 miles away, on a relatively high mesa.  Both did better than the Red River cinerea that was found near Dennison, about 4 hours north of here.

More typical is the below photo of 'selfed Rougeon'.  This is what happened to the crosses with no local cinerea in their pedigree.  Almost all the leaves have been destoyed.  This vine was loaded with large inflorescence nearing floraison.  Now, there is little left.  Note the uniformity of development.  Bud-burst was very uniform for this cross.  It is very unlikely to produce any fruit this year.

 Selfed Rougeon (click to expand):

Last year, we had a similar experience with selfed Rougeon seedlings.  The vine was loaded with flowers when the May frost event occurred.  That relatively light frost destroyed every blossom, and none emerged later in the year.

Last year, rupestris and bicolor crosses survived the May frost and produced fruit.  Neither survived today's frost. Both had every inflorescence destroyed.

Mediterranean pollen sources for the October grape

Some rooted cuttings with Mediterranean heritage are telling me that spring has arrived in the greenhouse.  They were potted last fall, and put out a few leaves before Thanksgiving.  Cold March nights in the teens took the greenhouse into the lower 30s.  These vines looked a bit stressed the following week.  Now, they are putting on a little grown spurt. All of this is well ahead of anything outside in the vineyard.

Their late ripening dates caught my attention when reviewing the US National Plant Germplasm System's database in 2012. Coming from hot, low latitude climates, they should produce some interesting crosses with native Texan vines. All three produce large, low acid table grapes.  When crossed with tart, small berry local rupestris and cinerea, the result should be interesting.

Itonychi Mavro (Greek): Based on genetic evidence this is either a child or parent of Black Morocco, which has been a popular table grape in the Mediterranean for centuries. It was collected by Dr. Harold Olmo and became part of the Davis repository in late 1948. The specimen may have come from the island of Cyprus, but was simply labeled 'From Greece'.  I couldn't find the name 'Itonychi Mavro' used anywhere else on the Internet.  The name was 'romanized' by Dr. Olmo, which may account for this.  Mavro is Greek for 'black' but looks like this in the Greek alphabet: μαύρος. 

Itonychi Lefko (Greek): According to genetic work, it is identical to ''Olivette Blanche' (France).   According to Winkler's 'General Viticulture', Olivette Blanche is an attractive table grape. The clusters are very large and elongated, with a narrowing at the end.  Grapes of this shape are known as 'ladyfinger' grapes.  The skin is white to yellow, with little acidity.  The skin is thin and prone to bruise, though. It does well in the hot San Joaquin valley of California.   Due to thin skins and associated shipping issues, Winkler concludes it is 'relatively unknown.'  The DNA works says 'Itonychi Lefko'/Olivette Blanche' is the same as Pirovano (Italy), 'Rish Baba' (Persia), Husseine (Afghanistan), Niunai (China),  and Siar (Afghanistan). Apparently, the shipping difficulty for fruit has not constrained people from shipping rooting material from one end of the Silk Road to the other.

Here is a photo of 'Rish Baba' grapes, courtesy of Paradise Nursery:

DVIT 2044: An Algerian table grape collected in 1925 by Dr. Olmo.  There isn't a great deal of information on the selection.  It was one of only late ripening repository selections from Algeria.  Of the cuttings, it was the first to put out leaves. Unlike the above two, this vine has not responded to the lengthening days.  Hopefully, it will show some vigor soon.

2013 Ripening Dates and Harvest Brix (est.)

Alphonse de Serres x op (7/20/13, 20 Brix)
Extra (7/30/13, 15 Brix)
Black Spanish (8/4/13, 22 brix)
Bridlegate x Carnelian  (9/6/13, 22 brix)
Bicolor x Lady Patricia (9/10/13, 24 brix)
Bridlegate x OP  (9/15/13?, ?)
(B49  cinerea X Villard Noir) x herbemont (10/10/13, 15 brix)

A couple of notes on the chart.  First, the local commercial harvest at Red Caboose ran from 7/22/13 to about 8/15/13.  I've estimated the harvest date based on my field notes.

I mistakenly harvested the one Bridlegate x OP cluster on 8/11/13.  We were about to leave on a vacation, and I was afraid it would ripen while we were gone.  Once I picked it, and looked at the underside of the cluster, I discovered the berries hadn't finished turning blue.  The bottom halves of the berries were still green.

I was surprised by the steady drop off in brix during October.  I was expecting higher and higher sugar as the berries started to raisin.  That didn't happen.  It seemed they lost both taste and sugar during October.  On the other hand, the Alphonse de Serres raisined during summer and produce a 26 brix on 9/2 (which I omitted since the cluster was clearly raisining and ants had attacked the cluster).

Both Black Spanish and Extra vines produced small crops compared to 2012.  This seemed to follow from the late frost in the first week of May.  The frost caused Extra to put out a couple of new clusters in June, which were just about ripe when our November freeze ended the season.  Getting the late start extends the days required to ripen since September and October have so many fewer 'Growing Degree Days'.

I let the clusters on the three late ripening vines to hang as long as possible.  The Bridlegage - Carnelian was clearly raisoning by 10/1/13, so I picked the 3 clusters.  Great raison tastes!  The other two hung until our November freeze.

Texas Ice Wine, Anyone?

The photo taken on Thursday morning, 11-14-13. Reported low that morning was 25.2 °F. The prior day low was 21.7 °F.

The vine is Cliff Amber's 'Cabin Bicolor' x Lady Patricia. Grapes were past their prime. Brix was below 20, and acid was gone. They were still juicy, though.

Algerian grape in Texas

The first of my 7 'hot climate' cuttings has put out some buds.  I waited until late September to try rooting the cuttings.  They arrived in late April, which would have forced them to root during May when it starts getting hot.  So, they stayed in the refrigerator for the summer.  Hopefully, this and the others will enjoy the greenhouse this winter.

The vine seems to have arrived in the US as a seed in 1925.  It's ancestors were probably in France during the 1800s, but they must have thrived in the Algerian heat.     

DVIT 2044