TV Munson passed away in 1913. His son, Bill Munson, passed away around 1925 (still looking for the material I read some time ago on this). In the early 30s, around the time prohibition was repealed, the Munson family (TV Munson's son's widow?) donated the grape stock to Texas A&M, who moved it from Denison to the Winter Garden Experimental Station south west of San Antonio.
The station was run by Ernest Mortensen who continued grape breeding experiments from the early 30s to the late 40s. During this time, he made progress towards the goal of a popular table or wine grape tolerant to the endemic grape diseases common to Texas: cotton root rot and Pierce's disease, but did not produce a commercially successful vine for the south Texas grower. Around 1950, he seems to have retired and left the Experimental Station. In 1951, Rio Grande Valley farmers decided, on their own, to plant Thompson Seedless at 5 large farms in the valley. This turned out to be a complete disaster, as anyone with much knowledge of grapes could have predicted. Unfortunately, Texas A&M took the brunt of industry criticism, and abandoned work on grape breeding. In the early 60s, the Munson collection at the Experimental Station was bulldozed.
Fortunately, Ernest's son, who had grown up with both Munson vines and his father's grape breeding experiments, escaped first to Cornell and then to the University of Florida, where at the Leesburg, FL experimental station, he continued grape breeding efforts with Loren Stover. In 1968, he performed the cross that would become 'Blanc Dubois'. Blanc Dubois would eventually prove his father's vision was correct and it is now widely grown in Texas. Oddly enough, though bred in Florida, Blanc DuBois seems to produce the best wine when grown in Texas.
To provide some sense of the time required for a new grape variety to become commercially popular, let's follow the Blanc DuBois story. The cross creating the variety was done in 1968. The first fruit appeared in 1973. In 1974, it was selected for further testing by Robert Bates, a professor of food processing at UF, and seems to have gone to the Lafayette Vineyard, not far from Leesburg, for field testing. In 1986, it won prizes in international wine competition and was finally released to the public in 1987. Mortensen retired from the University of Florida in 1991.
“Our original objective wasn’t to breed a grape for wine,” Mortensen said. “We were making a bunch grape for fresh eating that would ripen early and was disease resistant.”
There are 27 years between J.A. Mortensen's initial breeding efforts in 1960, and the 1987 release of Blanc DuBois. One needs a very long perspective to participate in something like this.
Most of this story if from a master's thesis by Eric Sanchez titled "Forked Tendrils: Llano Estacado Winery and the Rise of the Modern Texas Wine Industry' (1996). I'll quote it in length.
Texas A&M University Research
Texas A&M University was the first government institution to begin
research on grapes in Texas and on the South Plains. After the United States
government repealed the Eighteenth Amendment in December of 1933,
renewed interest in grape cultivation appeared. Funding for grape research
was limited and in the early 1930's, the Munson family turned over all of its
grape variety stocks to Texas A&M. Supported by federal and state funding,
researchers at Texas A&M's Extension Service began to conduct experiments
throughout the state, exploring whether or not a grape industry could
develop.32 Throughout the state of Texas, Texas A&M bmlt several
experiment stations. Of greatest importance to this discussion, Texas A&M
helped to build one on the South Plains and established another in Southeast
Texas.
Located on the Texas South Plains and built in 1909, Experimental
Sub-Station Number Eight began research efforts poised to develop
alternative-crop usage for West Texas farmers. The original site was in East
Lubbock, north from 19th street and inside the current Loop 289.
Researchers at the substation looked at every possible crop alternative on the
Texas South Plains, including grape cultivation. Records indicate that
investigators were trying to develop alternative crop uses of land on the South Plains and seeking to alleviate the dominance and high water needs of cotton and grain. 33
However, in 1937 Texas A&M dropped its research efforts for
alternative-crop usage in Lubbock and began focusing on improved cotton and
grain production. William N. Lipe, a former researcher at the Texas
Agricultural Extension Station in Lubbock, Texas, gave the following reason:
"I guess Texas A&M had decided that the program had lived out it usefulness,
based largely on the fact that growers at the time were satisfied with growing
cotton and grain products."34 Texas A&M did not renew its interest with
grape experiments on the South Plains until 1968.
In the early 1930s, horticulturist Ernest Mortensen became one of the
first individuals to foster applicable wine grape research in Texas. Texas
wine historian Sarah Jane English writes, "[a] highly intelligent man,
Mortensen grew up in an agricultural environment. After receiving a master's
degree from Texas A&M, he developed the Texas A&M Winter Garden
Research Center, in Southeast Texas, near Crystal City."35 Using Munson's
donated Vitis and hybrid varieties, Mortensen tried to hybridize disease resistant, native Vitis rootstock. He discovered several cultivars and
rootstocks which were resistant to indigenous diseases and pests, specifically
insects and nematodes.
English continues, "Mortensen selected healthy vines
from the wild throughout South Texas, recognizing the importance of
developing native roots. The LaPryor rootstock was the product of his work."36
Unfortunately, the cultivars with which Mortensen experimented
lacked acceptable fruit quality for wine production. Mortensen tried to produce V. vinifera cultivars on its own roots (self-rooted), but he failed.
Cotton rootrot and Pierce's disease eventuality terminated his efforts.3''
After working at Winter Garden Research Center for twenty-two years,
Mortensen left Crystal City in 1952. According to English, "Mortensen was
well on his way to making Texas a leader in viticulture research and grape
production. But in the early 1960s, a change in government priorities led to
bulldozing the grapes, ending the program."38
During the period 1937 to 1968, there were two reasons for the absence
of research on grape cultivation. English cites them both. First, the dismal
results of attempts to grow Thompson seedless grapes in South Texas
contributed. "In the 1950's, several South Texas farmers planted Thompson
seedless, a vinifera, for the early U.S. table grape market. They formed the
Lower Rio Grande Valley Grape Growers Association, and at least five large
vineyards were planted. "39
The South Texas vineyards died from three
afflictions: freeze or frost damage, cotton rootrot, and Pierce's disease. In the late 1950's, the afflictions eliminated the table grape industry in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. English cites in her book the following:
All the major horticulturists in the state were aware of this, and
it had a great deal to do with the philosophy toward grape
growing in Texas. Extension Service horticulturist Bluefford
Hancock and Professor Fred R. Brison did not want to lead
people in the wrong direction agriculturally. Based on failed
vineyards, they couldn't recommend commercial grapes to
farmers. 40
The second reason for the decline in grape research was the absence of
research proposals. The only other research conducted on grapes was by Uiel
Randolph, at the Fruit Investigation Laboratory, in Montague, Texas. 4i ^
George McEachern, as quoted by English, stated "Randolph did an
outstanding job between 1942 and 1962 and had an outstanding grape
research program. In 1962, Texas A&M decided to discontinue its research on
grapes because in the later years there were very few requests for grape
information. This was also following the South Texas table grape failure."^2
Sporadic planting of table and wine grapes, which often met with
failure, characterized the status of the wine-grape industry in Texas before
1960. Frequently, many farmers were ignorant of the complexity of grape
culture and the time needed to produce a healthy crop, a problem that existed
in the 1950s. The absence of quality research in terms of scope, inherent
climatic problems, and availability of continued governmental funding plagued the industry and political events such as the Eighteenth Amendment
severely hindered further research—even after the amendment's repeal in
1933. It was not until thirty years later, when a major expansion of wine
interest began farther west, that a viable modern wine-grape and wine
industry emerged in Texas and began to make serious efforts."
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