The Tropical Fruit Forum

I just germinated new grape seeds to add to my breeding project. The goal is something hardy like a native spray free but better fruit than wild.

(Z86 x d370) x (male aestavalis x shuttleworthii) should be about the same as a wild grape but better berries. 2/3 will be male unfortunately.

I think a bunch of cab zehn (z89) seeds sprouted unless I mixed that pot up with the above. I got can zehn open pollinated seeds this year hopefully I'll get some to sprout and survive.

Z86 x bd (stover x Daytona) I sprouted 25 or so last year got one outstanding survivor that's highly vigorous and disease resistant. Sold one on here that was mediocre. Trying to root it. But I used about 20 more seeds left over from last year and they came up. Besides being disease resistant and good fruit quality bd passes on pierce tolerance well (about 2/3 when crossed with a totally non resistant variety) so it's good to have in the mix.

Z86 and z89 are 6% muscadine with a mix of other natives and vinifers but super rare to cross that species barrier by bob zehnder and Dunstan. Also top level combination of disease resistance and berry quality. Cab zehn wine is almost identical to cab Sauvignon without any native flavors. Z86 has only a faint trace of native flavors also similar to cab Sauvignon.

Z86 is half cab Sauvignon and z89/cab zehn is half ruby Cabernet. Been trying to get cab zehn seeds for a while.

Aestavalis berries are not bad though around here tiny. A bit acidic. Shuttleworthii berries are larger and really good tasting though sometimes acidic sometimes not but aestavalis contributes to late ripening and cold hardiness. Shuttleworthii ripens so early it doesn't grow outside of Florida. Though the cross was a coincidence. My female plant had no pollinator and this one bloomed the same time as it. Aestavalis here blooms really late and ripens late it's more native to the south like Georgia or something this is the southern limit of it's range. Shuttleworthii is more tropical and at home in the swamps but they overlap here.

I'll see what I have later in the year to put up here. I have Suwannee too which has good disease resistance and good berries though slightly less tough than zehnder pretty similar though Suwannee has big berries.

Does anyone have seeds of us 119 or other disease resistant oranges?

The goal: grapes that are about as tough as native but better fruit qualities.

I have seeds left over from this spring.

Bd (stover x Daytona) selfed. I think it's bd5-115 I can't remember the numbers. I grew like 30 and have three. These don't grow very fast mainly due to inbreeding but the parent isn't a fast grower. Really low vigor due to inbreeding has thinned the herd. But once you cross it again vigor is restored.

This is a crisp non slip skin table grape green. It passes on pierce tolerance much better than anything else. Crossed with a non tolerant variety passes on full tolerance to 2/3 of offspring. Which it's like 15% with most hybrids. Overall disease resistance good considering. Some black rot. Everything seems to get rust in south Florida.

Should make good wine given the parents are good wine grapes. I have maybe 10 seeds.

Z86 x bd out of 25 I got about 3. One is insanely fast growing. One was decent I sold it. One runt I still have. Anthracnose and low vigor due to heat or whatever thin the herd. Everything usually still gets some minor black rot and rust among the survivors. But I have maybe 10 seeds left.

But here's this year's crop- (z86 x d370) x (shuttleworthi x aestavalis male)
This was sort of an accident. This vine bloomed this year at three years old. It was female and no pollinator. I got this wild vine that was blooming at the same time. Later than shuttleworthi and earlier than aestavalis.

Z86 x d370 has really good grapes and high disease resistance though black rot does build up and some rust. Not root nematode resistant in sand either. Everything else pretty good though berries were splitting.

So these seeds should be solid tough. But most will be male. No room to grow all these grapes. Males can be used as root stock or pulled up. I need someone that can grow some and keep me updated in two years send me a rooted female back. This batch the herd needs thinned out by cutting out males. All of them should be super healthy and disease resistant I imagine. For growing in Florida or the south.

Started in big pots with seed starter dirt they should grow super fast and get grapes in two years maybe one if you push it. Normal time is three years but these native ones when given the easy life can go blitzkrieg fast.

Need seed starter dirt due to it being neutral ph. In hybrids a lot of variability but generally they like neutral to slightly alkaline soil. Regular potting soil is too acidic unless amended. Anything weak can go in the trash but I doubt that will happen. This will take space to let them grow and get berries. Males just get pollen.

A normal hermaphrodite x female you get hermy and female offspring but with the wild male pollen lots of males.

Seeds need to go in a wet paper towel and in the fridge for three months for them to come up. Some don't come up the first year. Hence I start with 20 seeds, 15 come up, 12 die from disease is my normal path.

Aestavalis here has tiny berries. Edible but not great. Low sugar slightly acidic. Though occasionally some have good berries. But the aestavalis x shuttleworthi seems healthier than either one. Hybrid vigo. Aestavalis does have good cold hardiness and blooms later along with solid disease resistance. Though suceptible to insects eating the leaves. This is the only one in the mix with sub par berries and they are still edible.

Shuttleworthi pretty good eating overall some issues to be bred out through hybridizing. Main issue is super early blooming leading to lack of cold tolerance outside of Florida.

So we should get a tough female with pretty good berries. It should be as tough as a wild vine.

I have really impressive rare tropical grapes derived from Dunstan and Zehnder.

I'm rooting some grapes and maybe sell some seedlings I have. I might wait until later in the year to sell them so it's not a big deal. Shipping is going to stress them. I will knock as much dirt off as possible and wrap the roots in a wet paper towel and if they are really big, cut them back before shipping.

z86 (a complex hybrid crossed with cabranet sauvignon) x Taris Burgundy:

Originally started with about 20 seeds two years ago. I have two selections that survived in south Florida. One selection was amazing. It grows extremely fast like a weed, and rare is that it grows in all directions (including vertically) so would be good for training (most hybrids grow straight up and try to reach for the highest tree top- this one eventually grew up but also grows side ways). Down side is thin canes which seem to come from shuttleworthii (long thin canes). But it grows so fast you can train it whatever way you want.

Seems to resist all diseases except rust and very light amount of black rot. Has a lot of rust here in coastal south florida which I spray for, though central florida, north florida and all points north shouldn't have any rust issues. Pierce tolerance I can't rate. It usually does not pass on well in hybrids so pierce tolerance could be moderate to high. Both parents have high pierce tolerance.

Berries: it's only two years old and seems to take three years to get berries no matter how big the plant is. This one didn't go dormant for me last year in Florida, despite temperatures in the upper 30s. It just kept growing. It grows when its 100 degrees out. It grows when its 40 degrees out. As long as it has water and nutrients it grows like a weed.

Based on the parents, and sister vine the berries should be really good for fresh eating or wine. Though the sister vine the sugar and acidity is a bit low for wine you can always add sugar and make adjustments to it.

It is more disease resistant than the parent "Taris Burgundy" which everyone brags about being one of the best vines for Florida. Taris did ok for me. It was not nearly as vigorous or resilient as this vine, and it had slight anthracnose and would have had rust too. But it struggled for me and then a dog chewed some of its leaves off and it died on me. Almost every grape variety I tried in south florida died on me. I got these seeds from someone.

Most of the seedlings I got from this cross, some grew fast but died from anthracnose. Some were resistant to anthracnose but weren't growing and didn't seem to like the heat and humidity. This was the one seedling that had the right combination of traits and took off. I had several that survived but weren't growing, all of them croaked except one. It remained a little baby the whole first year. Then this second year it went dormant (the one I'm selling didn't go dormant), then came back in the spring and is growing pretty well this year. But its not big enough for me to get babies off of it easily.

It seem to root easily. I bury a part of a vine in dirt (while its still connected to the mother plant) and it roots within a month or two and then starts growing like crazy and I cut it off from the mother and have a new vine. Some varieties I have did not root for me when I did this, but this one seems to root easily. It probably would root well from cuttings.

I have two of these I rooted. I can easily make more because it will just keep growing new shoots I can root. Though it does take some disease damage, probably better than anything else you are going to get.

Despite all the rumors and stories Tari's Burgundy does not appear to be a muscadine cross. It seems to be half shuttleworthii (native to south florida with good tasting grapes) and half vinifera. z86 is about 6% muscadine, 85% or so vinifera and the rest mostly aestavalis.

So this cross is about 25% shuttleworthii, 3% muscadine, and 6% or so aestavalis. Though z86 tastes like a vinifera, and the fruit doesn't have any resemblance to muscadine, so the native fruit qualities are mostly bred out.

z86 x D370 (dunstan 370):

This one is three years old and I got berries. Good non slip skin green table grapes (with a slight blush to them so greenish). Tastes about like a store grape. Leaves and plant resemble aestavalis. Resists all diseases. Some very light amount of rust and black rot. Also roots without a problem.

I just started to root two of them so this will take a month or so to get a good root system on the babies. It didn't grow much at all in the sandy soil so I put it in a giant pot along with all my other plants. Probably not resistant to root nematodes that occur in the sand. Grew kind of moderate slow at first but on the third year growing pretty fast.

D370 is primarily an aestavalis/vinifera hybrid distantly related to Suwannee. So this one is  65% vinifera (same amount as the taris cross) and 3% muscadine but instead of shuttleworthii has a decent amount of aestavalis.

Berries taste like vinifera, skin somewhat thick for a table grape, non slip skin, inside somewhat puply but melts in your mouth (not crisp like store grapes). Seeded but its easy to spit the seeds out. Should make good wine, juice or jellies as well. Not super sweet so may need to add a bit of sugar for wine or juice, though the taste is good and I want to cut back on sugar. No strong flavors, just mild table grape with a slight wine grape flavor.

z86 x BD5-117 (Stover x Daytona)

BD5-117 has better disease resistance than either parent, and passes on pierce tolerance better than just about any other hybrid. Berries are non slip skin, good table grape with slightly thick skin. Berries are a bit smaller than Daytona but still medium size. University of Florida's breeding program just ended up having a big mix up so this grape never got released. Then University of California used it to breed some California table grapes that are resistant to pierce disease but they stopped using it and are focusing on vitis arizonica crosses now.

BD5-117 also can be used to make a good wine. It has a higher percentage of vinifera than Taris Burgundy or D370, slightly more. It is about 12.5% shuttleworthii, along with rupestris, aestavalis and other things in the mix.

So similarly this cross will be 3% muscadine from the z86 side.

I have one seedling that started growing super fast, with really good disease resistance. It's less than a year old. So that is the one I will keep, then maybe next year I can root it. It has oak shaped leaves unlike all my other seedlings. I have two siblings that survived that aren't growing as fast but pretty healthy. I was thinking of getting rid of one of them because I have too many grape vines.

BD5-117 selfed:

I have a lot of problems rooting cuttings that people send me so I try to get seeds. Selfed seeds are not great, because they have lower vigor due to inbreeding. But out of about 25 selfed seeds I started I have four that are doing good. I have one that I think I like best. So I will need to get rid of some.

They have some rust susceptibility which pretty much every grape vine I have has some susceptibility to rust, which isn't an issue further north. Otherwise they seem totally disease resistant. They are growing slower than others because of being inbred and also BD4-117 is not a fast grower anyway but actually in absolute terms they probably grow at a normal speed. I just have a lot of hybrids that grow like weeds so they are slow in comparison.

I also have Suwannee which is growing fast but slightly more disease prone than my others. I tried to root it but the wind keeps blowing it out of its pot so I gave up. But these varieties are overall better than Suwannee, Stover, Blanc Du Boise etc. Suwannee does have large berries and I was hoping to cross it at some point. It does grow fast, but the disease susceptibility is slightly more than I want. Blanc Du Boise won't survive for me, as most varieties won't. Never had Stover but the BD4-117 is better than Stover anyway and is half Stover.

I was looking for $10 a plant, which much of that will go into shipping cost. Maybe do a postal money order or something which I can cash at the post office. Just PM me, but I'm not going to be in a rush to send these out because I need to let them get a little bigger before shipping them, except for one taris x z86 which is actually really big.