Saturday, May 31, 2014

Mediterranean pollen sources growing in the greenhouse

Some rooted cuttings from Greece and North Africa look like they are going to survive.  They have been in the greenhouse all winter, and have a head start compared to the vineyard. All three of these budded last fall, and remained fairly inert until a couple of weeks ago. 

Being hot climate, low latitude vines, they should produce some interesting crosses with native Texan vines.  Algeria and Texas.  Algeria is at about the same latitude as Tulsa, and Greece is about the same latitude as Kansas City.

Glen Rose, Texas  is roughly on the same latitude as Alexandria, Egypt.  Last year, we started a 'Muscat of Alexandria' vine, which did very well in the vineyard.  It started budding out in January, though, and had to be moved into the Green house, where all these vines will have to stay. The shock of moving to the greenhouse will probably delay blossoms until next year.

Itonychi Mavro: Based on genetic evidence this is either a child or parent of Black Morocco














Olivette Blanche






















DVIT 2044 (originally collected in Algeria)

Sustainable winegrowing



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California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance
CSWA is a nonprofit organization created by the Wine Institute & the California Association of Winegrape Growers.

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For a quick overview, there is a power-point review (PPT) titled "Sustainability Initiatives in the Global Wine Industry" by Thrupp, Fetzer and CSWA (California Sustainable Winegrowers Association). 

There was no mention of grape breeding for sustainable growing, though.  I may not have done enough searching, though.  Dr. Andrew Walker is located in California and has done a lot of breeding for Pierce's Disease (PD) tolerance (ie, PD management without chemicals) , so it seems strange his work wasn't mentioned in the materials I reviewed.

To see 'sustainable grape growing' investigate grape breeding, there is 'PIWI International (grape breeders interested in North American x European crosses)


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What are fungus resistant grape varieties (PIWIs)?
„PIWI“ is a German abbreviation and stands for fungus resistant grape varieties.

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"PIWI" is a German abbreviation and stands for fungus resistant grape varieties. These were created by crossing European grape varieties and American fungus resistant varietals.

There is also'GrapeNet' which seem interested in enhancing the genetic diversity of commercial grapes.  I've only taken a quick look, though.  The site had not been updated for 2014: