Post by Marches on Jan 1, 2015 17:04:55 GMT -5
I'm a grape breeder from Cheshire, UK (hopefully diversifying into other crops too). Unlike the majority of amateur grape breeders these days, I breed mainly for table grapes. My aim is to breed a few seedless varieties perfect for cooler climates with good flavour, good yields, high disease resistance and reliability and coupling this with seedlessness (what most of the public probably want in table grapes these days). Breeding them to be early in such a cool climate is important too and most current seedless varieties that grow here are late, the ones that are earlier that I've mainly had to track down or source from abroad are early but suffer low yields and flavours and textures that not everyone will enjoy.
I hope to breed a few varieties of grapes that ripen around late September in Northern England, for this I'am crossing disease resistant, high-yielding seedless table grapes with very early, fine flavoured seeded grapes. Hopefully most of these would be useful across a larger area in Northern Europe too.
Varieties I work with all have Vitis vinifera (European grape) in their background, but most are crosses with another species somewhere in their ancestry and these include Vitis labrusca (Fox grapes), Vitis riparia (Riverbank grapes), Vitis rupestris (Sand grape) and VItis amurensis (Amur grape) mainly. Although most of the material for breeding seedless table grapes in England is Vitis labrusca, I'am trying to avoid using it too much - although it can breed fine varieties, it is much harder to breed "conventional" flavours that most people would enjoy and it has some strong, dominant traits of its own that not everyone likes such as mushy flesh and thick skins that slip off and strange aftertaste.
In the process I've amassed a small collection of grape varieties that are mostly uncommon here but probably should be more widely adopted. I'm a very active participant in a grape breeding group, but sadly it only has a handful of members from Europe so exchange of breeding material is quite limited.
With other crops I'm looking at breeding potatoes and a few other things such as Pepinos. I'm registered on tatermaters and am looking to cross Sarpo Mira with some conventional varieties to try and breed blight resistance with good quality conventional varieties - no easy task. I haven't started this yet but hope to plant my first lot of potatoes this year and make some crosses. I'm mainly looking for a potato that boils well, but I have a feeling that resistance of tubers may affect cooking and eating qualities so it's probably easier said than done. I eat a lot of potatoes (probably every other day) and I personally would like crops to be lower input and naturally disease resistant. My interest was sparked when I started breeding grapes, but mainly after I grew some potatoes and discarded a potato berry on a compost heap and found that it grew (it was a self of Maris Piper if I remember right).
Pepinos sound interesting - like a melon in flavour apparently. Some are probably better than others and I think the late flowering and ripening is perhaps because they're possibly short day adapted. So I will grow some inside and see if I like them (haven't grown or tasted them yet) and if I get a few seedlings that do produce nice fruit which indeed does taste like melon I'll look into selecting for long day seedlings, hunt down seeds from areas with longer days and select for offspring that can be grown much in the same way as tomatoes here and ripen in summer and develop varieties.
Sorry for the long winded post. I gather this is mainly a breeding board? I'm glad to find such a site.
Cheers
Marches
I hope to breed a few varieties of grapes that ripen around late September in Northern England, for this I'am crossing disease resistant, high-yielding seedless table grapes with very early, fine flavoured seeded grapes. Hopefully most of these would be useful across a larger area in Northern Europe too.
Varieties I work with all have Vitis vinifera (European grape) in their background, but most are crosses with another species somewhere in their ancestry and these include Vitis labrusca (Fox grapes), Vitis riparia (Riverbank grapes), Vitis rupestris (Sand grape) and VItis amurensis (Amur grape) mainly. Although most of the material for breeding seedless table grapes in England is Vitis labrusca, I'am trying to avoid using it too much - although it can breed fine varieties, it is much harder to breed "conventional" flavours that most people would enjoy and it has some strong, dominant traits of its own that not everyone likes such as mushy flesh and thick skins that slip off and strange aftertaste.
In the process I've amassed a small collection of grape varieties that are mostly uncommon here but probably should be more widely adopted. I'm a very active participant in a grape breeding group, but sadly it only has a handful of members from Europe so exchange of breeding material is quite limited.
With other crops I'm looking at breeding potatoes and a few other things such as Pepinos. I'm registered on tatermaters and am looking to cross Sarpo Mira with some conventional varieties to try and breed blight resistance with good quality conventional varieties - no easy task. I haven't started this yet but hope to plant my first lot of potatoes this year and make some crosses. I'm mainly looking for a potato that boils well, but I have a feeling that resistance of tubers may affect cooking and eating qualities so it's probably easier said than done. I eat a lot of potatoes (probably every other day) and I personally would like crops to be lower input and naturally disease resistant. My interest was sparked when I started breeding grapes, but mainly after I grew some potatoes and discarded a potato berry on a compost heap and found that it grew (it was a self of Maris Piper if I remember right).
Pepinos sound interesting - like a melon in flavour apparently. Some are probably better than others and I think the late flowering and ripening is perhaps because they're possibly short day adapted. So I will grow some inside and see if I like them (haven't grown or tasted them yet) and if I get a few seedlings that do produce nice fruit which indeed does taste like melon I'll look into selecting for long day seedlings, hunt down seeds from areas with longer days and select for offspring that can be grown much in the same way as tomatoes here and ripen in summer and develop varieties.
Sorry for the long winded post. I gather this is mainly a breeding board? I'm glad to find such a site.
Cheers
Marches
