Rossnaree
Well-Known Member
It's been awhile since I posted anything on Homebrew Talk, many "life" reasons why but here goes...
I've been growing grapes for a number of years. Decades, actually. Anyways, a few years back I added LaCrescent to the vineyard. Whenever choosing a new variety I always limit my purchase to one or two vines at first, so I know how they'll perform. Always the old sayings: 1. If YOU don't like the weather/climate where you live, neither will your grapes; and 2. The way your grapes let you know whether or not they like the terroir is by the wine they make. I agree. So, LaCrescent… They do well, and to be fair 2 vines doesn't produce enough must with which to experiment, but they apparently really like it here, lol!
SOOO... I go out to check on things in the vineyard almost every day, and yesterday I was doing a bit of weeding. I get to the LaCrescent, and there's a branch with clusters of already-dark blue berries. All other branches have the typical green-gold at this time, and won't be ripening for some time yet. At first I thought it was an injured or diseased branch but immediately dismissed that because the berries don't go dark on those vines even when the bunch stem breaks. So I figure, first time in ALL these years, I may actually have a "sport!" None of the other red wine varieties have begun to show any sort of color change yet, which is normal; I guess the exception would be the King of the North (only 1 vine) that I keep near the house along with one Concord vine to use for juice and jelly. But even the KOTN only has a couple of berries out of all the clusters that are even starting to blush.
Have any of you had a similar experience specifically with LaCrescent? The thing that bothers me is, I took cuttings to root from various branches on both vines because I'm ready to expand the LaCrescent presence in the vineyard, and absolutely had no reason to pay any mind to which branches I was cutting because there was never any sort of variance in the past. Now, I'll have to wait a few years until those are in production before I know what's what. But if any of you know anything, I'm all ears. Wondering if there's any reason to keep propagating the sports, if there will be any. Or to mark the branch and take cuttings from that next year. There are no other differences wrt leaves, habit, etc.
And that's another thing - I'm no expert by any means, but with my limited knowledge isn't it usually a dark grape that produces lighter-colored sports? For instance, Niagara (white) was a sport of Concord, Frontenac Gris a sport of Frontenac, and Frontenac Blanc a sport of Frontenac and Frontenac Gris... and so on.
Anyways, thanks in advance!
- Tim
I've been growing grapes for a number of years. Decades, actually. Anyways, a few years back I added LaCrescent to the vineyard. Whenever choosing a new variety I always limit my purchase to one or two vines at first, so I know how they'll perform. Always the old sayings: 1. If YOU don't like the weather/climate where you live, neither will your grapes; and 2. The way your grapes let you know whether or not they like the terroir is by the wine they make. I agree. So, LaCrescent… They do well, and to be fair 2 vines doesn't produce enough must with which to experiment, but they apparently really like it here, lol!
SOOO... I go out to check on things in the vineyard almost every day, and yesterday I was doing a bit of weeding. I get to the LaCrescent, and there's a branch with clusters of already-dark blue berries. All other branches have the typical green-gold at this time, and won't be ripening for some time yet. At first I thought it was an injured or diseased branch but immediately dismissed that because the berries don't go dark on those vines even when the bunch stem breaks. So I figure, first time in ALL these years, I may actually have a "sport!" None of the other red wine varieties have begun to show any sort of color change yet, which is normal; I guess the exception would be the King of the North (only 1 vine) that I keep near the house along with one Concord vine to use for juice and jelly. But even the KOTN only has a couple of berries out of all the clusters that are even starting to blush.
Have any of you had a similar experience specifically with LaCrescent? The thing that bothers me is, I took cuttings to root from various branches on both vines because I'm ready to expand the LaCrescent presence in the vineyard, and absolutely had no reason to pay any mind to which branches I was cutting because there was never any sort of variance in the past. Now, I'll have to wait a few years until those are in production before I know what's what. But if any of you know anything, I'm all ears. Wondering if there's any reason to keep propagating the sports, if there will be any. Or to mark the branch and take cuttings from that next year. There are no other differences wrt leaves, habit, etc.
And that's another thing - I'm no expert by any means, but with my limited knowledge isn't it usually a dark grape that produces lighter-colored sports? For instance, Niagara (white) was a sport of Concord, Frontenac Gris a sport of Frontenac, and Frontenac Blanc a sport of Frontenac and Frontenac Gris... and so on.
Anyways, thanks in advance!
- Tim
