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Post by blackox on Jan 4, 2015 12:47:41 GMT -5
Reading the interspecific grape hybrids thread got me thinking - how would one go about identifying wild grapes/grape relatives? We have hundreds of wild "grape" vines in the forest near our property; I've seen vines with red, green, white, purple, and green fruits. (They're old vines, but erratically placed which leads me to believe that I'm not sitting on an old vineyard.) I'd like to use them for something if they do happen to be something edible, but the last thing that I want to do is mistake them for something poisonous or inedible like Canadian Moonseed.
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Post by darrenabbey on Jan 5, 2015 0:27:06 GMT -5
Reading the interspecific grape hybrids thread got me thinking - how would one go about identifying wild grapes/grape relatives? We have hundreds of wild "grape" vines in the forest near our property; I've seen vines with red, green, white, purple, and green fruits. (They're old vines, but erratically placed which leads me to believe that I'm not sitting on an old vineyard.) I'd like to use them for something if they do happen to be something edible, but the last thing that I want to do is mistake them for something poisonous or inedible like Canadian Moonseed. Canadian Moonseed taste 'bad' and have seeds that are shaped distinctly from grapes. True grapes are pretty easy to identify with a little looking. The diversity of fruit colors you describe makes me really want to explore those woods. I've found diverse stands of wild-growing plums, but never grapes. When I find grapes, they've always been the typical wild forms ( Vitis riparia, etc.). |
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Post by reed on Jan 5, 2015 5:50:55 GMT -5
blackbox, We have a LOT of wild grapes and some of them are pretty good but I have never seen any color other dark purple or black(ish). They vary a little in size of fruit and taste and maybe a little difference in leaves. Maybe yours are some kind of random cross with some tame grapes. Red or white wild grapes sounds very interesting.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jan 5, 2015 7:46:07 GMT -5
Actually they'd almost have to be. Actual "wild" (as opposed to feral or feral-wild hybrid) are pretty much always blue-black since the main "selector" in the absence of people is birds, and birds tend to go for blue-black skins (since it makes the ripe fruit more visible)and small fruit size (since it makes the berries easier to fit in their beaks. It sounds like a lot of your stuff must be domestic descended.
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Post by reed on Jan 5, 2015 9:12:31 GMT -5
blackox, How big are the grapes? The biggest we have here are about the size of the head of a thumb tack. Are there new growth vines too or just the older ones? I would love to have some seeds of those other colored ones, any chance of that?
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Post by darrenabbey on Jan 5, 2015 18:22:35 GMT -5
I would love to have some seeds of those other colored ones, any chance of that? This is an idea I like... gather up a mixed mess of seeds from the diversely colored wildlings... send out to the world. |
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Post by blackox on Jan 5, 2015 19:03:24 GMT -5
reed - Going off of memory, most of the individual grapes were about the size of marbles. There were some plants that had smaller or larger grapes on them. I remember seeing one next to the stream that had large purple grapes about the size of the large Californian table grapes that you might see at the store. There are both young vines and old ones, some have managed to climb to the tops of the trees. Whether the smaller vines are new growth or just sections of the older vines that managed to root themselves, I don't know. Maybe I'll go for a long walk tomorrow and get a look at the dormant vines. Reed and darrenabbey - I may be away for a while sometime this summer, but should be able to catch the vines in fruit when I get back. So yes, I'd be more than happy to send out seeds. I will make sure to get plenty of pictures of the fruits when they do show up also.
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Post by reed on Jan 7, 2015 5:42:06 GMT -5
Marble sized, that is huge compared to our wild grapes. Look forward to seeing the pictures. I love grapes and they are so easy. Sometimes don't get much cause of bugs or hail or what ever but always enough to munch. One good year in five can make years worth of jelly.
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Post by greenfinger on Jan 8, 2015 17:15:29 GMT -5
May help a bit. www.eattheweeds.com/vitis-wild-grapes-2/Can't find it just now, but I'm pretty sure moonseed does not have tendrils. As well as the seed shaped like a moon. Grapes have tendrils, with seeds teardrop shaped, like.... grape seeds.  |
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Post by reed on Jan 9, 2015 5:54:59 GMT -5
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Post by blackox on Jan 9, 2015 17:52:46 GMT -5
Thanks, Greenfinger! Now I'm really itching to get out there and look for grapes (not going to happen in the middle of winter though).
Now that I see pics of Moonseed for myself, I'm sure that what I have are not Moonseed plants, these ones have "stereotypical" grapes leaves without curves of any kind.
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Post by Marches on Jan 28, 2015 17:01:22 GMT -5
Reading the interspecific grape hybrids thread got me thinking - how would one go about identifying wild grapes/grape relatives? We have hundreds of wild "grape" vines in the forest near our property; I've seen vines with red, green, white, purple, and green fruits. (They're old vines, but erratically placed which leads me to believe that I'm not sitting on an old vineyard.) I'd like to use them for something if they do happen to be something edible, but the last thing that I want to do is mistake them for something poisonous or inedible like Canadian Moonseed. Those are all colours of Vitis labrusca (Fox grape) that's common in the woods of the Eastern US. The flavour can vary from musky with a slight hint of strawberries, to blueberry-like or to a Welches grape juice / Concord flavour (Concord itself being largely of Vitis labrusca ancestry). Labrusca grapes have thick skins, soft flesh and very different flavour from store bought grapes. Bunches are small and tightly packed, grapes can be large though which was why breeders in the US used it for table grapes. |
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Post by Marches on Jan 28, 2015 17:06:59 GMT -5
It's probably worth bearing in mind though that a lot of these species have great variation in the wild and through hybridization with each other and cultivated grapes.
But labrusca traits are almost always dominant and are hard to breed out, so usually the grapes are as I described whether natural hybrid or not.
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Post by darrenabbey on Jan 28, 2015 19:19:29 GMT -5
But labrusca traits are almost always dominant and are hard to breed out, so usually the grapes are as I described whether natural hybrid or not. A dominant trait would be easier to breed out than a recessive one, but I take your phrase to mean there are LOTS of dominant traits which would then make finding the combination of recessive traits favored for table-grapes problematic. Fortunately, I (and others apparently) don't mind this sort of task as a hobby. |
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Post by steev on Jan 28, 2015 20:26:03 GMT -5
I find Concord grape juice a bit much, but I value Concord on the arbor for its fragrance and a few to eat fresh is a treat. For juice I prefer some of the wine grapes; Fume Blanc, for instance, and Valdespina? ( I am unsure of the spelling; a friend's friend's parents grew it near Modesto and shipped their crop to Canada, where it was favored by home wine-makers ); my friends and I gleaned the vineyard post-harvest once, crushed, enzymed, and sulfited the grapes; come time to siphon off the juice for fermenting, we wound up drinking quantities as fresh grape juice, it was so delicious; it was a red grape and made excellent wine, post-fermentation.
I'd not mind trying it on the farm, but I've not found it since.
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