From The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Oklahoma muscadine grape growers will be keeping an eye across the border to the east and south for news from a new grant aimed at improving muscadine grapes, including developing disease-resistant and seedless varieties.
The University of Arkansas has received a four-year, $7 million USDA grant to improve muscadine grape varieties for both fresh market sales and wine.
Native to the southeastern U.S., muscadine grapes thrive in warmer, more humid conditions than other grape species. They also grow better in the slightly acidic soils common in the region, and tolerate a range of pests and diseases, as well as drought. Four southeastern Oklahoma counties, including LeFlore, are ideal for muscadine grapes, and the Kerr Center has had demonstration plantings in the past.
In the century-plus since breeders turned their attention to muscadine grapes, they’ve developed over one hundred different varieties. More recently, they’ve succeeded in developing seedless varieties by crossing muscadine grapes (Vitis rotundifolia) with common grapes (Vitis vinifera) – a challenge, given that the two species have different numbers of chromosomes.
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The new grant will build on that work. Renee Threlfall and Margaret Worthington at the University of Arkansas will work with a 32-person team across the nation, including researchers from Texas A&M and the University of Georgia, “to support grape growers in propagating new seedless muscadine selections for trials across the southeastern U.S.”
“This project will seek to crossbreed muscadines and common grapes to get the best characteristics of these two grape species,” said Justin Scheiner, a viticulture specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. “Both generations of grapes will be instrumental in breeding new high-quality, climate-resilient cultivars for both the fresh market and wine production.”
“A lot of this is about changing climates and changing disease resistance, changing cultivars that grow in the area,” Threlfall said.
What other traits are researchers breeding for in muscadine grapes?
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