2006 CZ Vineyard hybrid seeds counted
Today I finished tabulating my 2006 hybrid seed inventory and the total came out to 8,444 seeds! These include hybrids of various cultivars with wild vines I've selected from around central VA, and elsewehere. Visit the hybrid grapes section of the Grape Breeding page on the CZ website to view the list which I will post shortly. Dr. Norton's famous grape may soon have some modern analogues!
9 comments:
Cliff,
Congratulations on the number of hybrid seed you produced this year. I noticed that you had a couple of Seyval Blanc X muscadine hybrids, which is no small feat. You have Higgins listed as the father of one of the crosses, which sounds strange since it is supposed to be a female. How did you manage to do the muscadine crosses since they typically bloom about a month later than bunch grapes?
Stephen Bailey
The 2006 muscadine crosses
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for watching the blog! The muscadine crosses aren't really a big deal. Using muscadine pollen on bunch grapes will make fruit on the bunch grapes and some seed, but the question is, "will they germinate and eventually make fruit with viable seed?". I do believe the Seyval X Tara produced some actual hybrid seed, but the single berry of the "Higgins" cross could well be a selfed Seyval seed. The "Higgins" I have is just a guess as to variety. Isons sent a replacement to me that was supposed to be Nesbitt, but it came out large and bronze and a bit later than Tara. It has upright stamens, so maybe Magnolia is a better guess. Anyhow, I doubt the single seed will be a muscadine cross, so it will be forgotten soon enough. I hope to try a couple of these kinds of crosses a year to see if I can stumble upon another NC-6-15 that became the basis of Dunstan's DRX crosses and later Bob Zehnder's, too.
Regards, Cliff
I know that with the chromosome differences, getting a viable seedling from grape x muscadine is not extremely likely. What I don't understand from a practical standpoint (unless Seyval Blanc is a very late bloomer) is how you were able to use muscadine pollen as the father, since the bunch grapes are usually finished blooming a few weeks before the muscadines start. If it is possible to "store" pollen for a few weeks in the refrigerator, then using a bunch grape to pollenate a female muscadine would be pretty straitforward.
Stephen
Stephen,
Seyval here blooms for a prolonged period which gets to be a real problem as it starts blooming from secondary shoots off the primary canes that started in the spring. I can breed on Seyval well into July if I want. The overlap with muscadine pollen sources is no problem.
Cliff
Cliff,
Ever considered using tetraploids for the Euvitis-muscadine crosses? I keep meaning to really dig through the old literature on this, but I think it would really increase the odds of fertile offspring, allowing muscadine chromosomes to pair with muscadine chromosomes and bunch grape chromosomes to pair with bunch grape chromosomes. Jiang Liu's group at FAMU is working on protoplast fusion, which would yield something similar, but it seems a rather complex way of going about it (maybe straight crosses don't work, I don't know). The strategy works in other species at least.
The Three Bobs in the Carolinas did a fair amount of work with colchicine and tetraploid production/breeding back in their heyday. Bob Zehnder told me it was a lot of fun and they got some really strange stuff, but in the end the straight hybrids seemed to settle down faster in later generations and he wondered whether the tetraploid route was really worth the while.
My interest is only occasional since a new muscadine X bunch grape hybrid would be fun but not the focus of what I'm doing now. If I manage to make a cross that is fertile, I will probably mess with it more. My cultivars X wild bunch grapes breeding is my focus now. We really are on the fringe of muscadine land.
I figured that was probably the case. Any idea specifically what they were doing? I've seen it approached two ways (making tetraploids and then crossing them, or crossing diploids, then doubling the infertile progeny to restore fertility). Conceivably you could go the other way, too, breeding at the tetraploid level, then using pollen culture to regain haploid plants. My guess is that would be a lot of work for very little pay off.
Somewhere I have a file of articles on Dunstan's work that I came across at one point years ago and made copies of, knowing I'd never be able to find them again if I wanted them, and they've disappeared and I don't think I ever even finished reading them. (Dunstan retired just up the road from me, incidentally, but he was gone by the time I moved here).
Tetraploid grapes in general have never really lived up to their promise anyhow (although the Japanese like them), but messing with ploidy is always fun. I wonder if anyone has identified any particular grape cultivars as producing excessively high numbers of 2n gametes naturally? I know such plants have been identified in some species, like blueberry.
Cliff,
I received the following response from a Yahoo grapegrowing group inquiry about P9-15. I thought that you might be interested in knowing about the Z 74-21-5. I don't know who the 'Roy' might be. "The parent Z 67-7-5 was Bob Zehnder's. Florida grew selfed seed to produce the P9-15. I just spoke to Bob and he has both vines in his vineyard. If they want to breed to Muscadine it will work fine going that direction. If they are trying to breed bunch grapes Z 74-21-5 is a better choice as it is fully cross compatible with bunch grapes and still contains a remarkable level of DR from it's Muscadine background on both sides. I am sending a crosshistory for it. I believe Roy has Z 74-21-5 growing in Washington. I have not gotten it to root on my property. The GA vines listed are Muscadine as is Higgins and the DRX is Dunstans designation for Rotundifolia x Bunch hybrids. Z 74-21-5 is a remarkable parent producing Iron clad seedlings even when crossed with Vinifera and it is fully PD resistant."
That is something I would be interested in- I want vines that will grow good in florida with little care. The muscadines grow literally as weeds around here but the fruit itself has very large seeds, odd flavor, odd texture, small bunches etc. Native vitis can't handle the disease. Seems most native american vines do well here (like concord) but most northern ones like concord aren't peirce resistant also issue again odd flavor profile with concords muskyness etc.
University of Florida releases hybrids which will grow here and moderate pierce resistance but they don't do very well without a lot of care (even with care I guess they aren't as vigorous).
Since wild grapes grow around here like weeds I'm just interested in crosses that will grow easily and have a bit more desirable fruit. Especially muscadine/vitis crosses.
I think something even with a small amount of muscadine (like 1/8) would probably still have amazing disease resistance.
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