I certainly respect and appreciate your experiences,and I readily admit that I don’t know much at all about grapes. But I haven’t had any difficulties with Reliance that I haven’t had with my other grapes, except that they are certainly preferred by my critters (mostly birds in my case but quite possibly coons or opossums have been what hit them and I just didn’t know it. But for me, they aren’t any more prone to diseases than any of my other grapes. I spray all mine and that has ended all my disease problems- including black rot for sure. Mine all were quite pink looking. They don’t color up nearly as dark as my other grapes, but I think the pink grapes are pretty. I’ve never had any fall off like you mentioned. Anyway, I definitely agree that they are the preferred fruit for critters, but otherwise I’ve had none of your problems. Maybe I’m just lucky?
Ate my first few Concords this week in the backyard. Love them.
@Matt_in_Maryland I know exactly what you mean! One of the things I enjoy about grapes is that - and this may only be at my geographic location and with the trees and plants that I have- is that they tend to come in when nothing else is producing. My stone fruits are over, my apples and most pears, and my persimmons aren’t ripe yet. That is one more reason why its so fun to go “grazing” my grapes this time of year. I honestly think I can eat 2 pounds of grapes in one “graze”! haha
Probably.
Its fair to say that no grape variety is without one or more detracting qualities. The occurrence of defects in grapes can vary from site to site, year to year and may or may not be evident under certain growing conditions.
As you know, spraying is quite a chore and is at least somewhat dangerous. Understandably, there are growers that don’t spray their grapes. They should choose the very best disease resistant grapes. Certainly they should choose a variety that has some resistance to black rot.
I have seen other reviews of Reliance grapes where it was stated that when picking ripening grapes or handling clusters, a grape (or grapes) would sometimes fall off the cluster. Of course, that is common if the grape has insect damage but it should not happen otherwise. I definitely experienced that over and over again this year. Not really a problem, just an annoyance. Also, although I have not experienced it with Reliance, it has been written that the occurrence of berry cracking during rainy weather is common during harvest times.
Reliance is a prime example of a grape that definitely needs to be thinned. I neglected (damn that turkey hunting) the thinning of my grapes this year. That caused havoc with the coloration of the Reliance clusters due to uneven ripening.
However, don’t get me wrong, I would still recommend Reliance grapevine despite the negatives. It has that great of a flavor. Its just that it is not for everyone.
Here is a pdf that goes into great detail of the coloration problems of Reliance grapes.
http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/119/5/893.full.pdf
Pulled a few more bunches of Concord from the backyard yesterday.
Approaching peak ripeness around Aug 15 like it does here every year like clockwork.
These are growing in much-less-than-ideal conditions and still produce handfuls of tasty table grapes. I remember eating these from my late grandfather’s vines and the taste always reminds me of those cherished memories.
Wow…i’ll have to add a vine of that. I’m eating Reliance here.
These are 100% organic…never sprayed. The roof of the house protects them some from the rains.
I added La Crosse and La Crescent grape vines…i need to build an arbor thing.
my chambourcin wine grape starts to ripe。 differnt location of a small yard, grape ripes differently. This was on 3 feet tall fence. another one on 7~8feet deck has not ripen yet
How is that for flavor? Do you make wine? My MIL drinks it by the barrel. I should get a few vines started for her.
Wine grapes tasted sweeter than table grapes. I wanted them to be on the vine as later as they can . Then I will use them to make peony wine. I made few bottles last year and they were very good
I’m not particularly good at growing grapes, so let me just throw that out there. But I did get some this year (more than this but the picture is from a small tasting). From left to right: Somerset Seedless, Gurney’s Tickled Pink (what a terrible name), Glenora, and one from Willis Orchard called Blueberry Grape. All of them were okay, but the Gurney’s Tickled Pink was the standout. I think their website describes it as having a cream soda type flavor, and I agree with that. I liked it a lot, not artificially tasting, not too sweet, just nice fruity and refreshing.
Thanks for giving a flavor review. wasn’t tickled pink pricey at some point back? I did looked blueberry grape when I ordered niabel from Willie. I recall it was described as having blue berry flavor, is it true?
Not really. I was thinking about the blueberry flavor while I was eating some, and I guess I could taste it a little. But I think that might have been more the power of suggestion rather than a true blueberry flavor.
Nice. I hadn’t heard of that grape until recently when we were at a winery in NW Iowa. It isn’t as widely planted here as other hybrids. They made a very nice wine from it. Calico Skies Winery was the name of the winery.
Thanks,Good to know. I picked it up by accident. it was on sale. But it turned out well, I started to enjoy wine making. I prefer sweet wine and might add another grape plant to make ice wine
Are these Concord grapes? I got a few Concord vines and the flavor is great except for the seeds.
Tony
These are so called seedless concords but in our climate they have seeds. These are 100% no spray but about 4 years ago I sprayed very frequently to eliminate a case of blackrot. Once I cured the blackrot using cultural practices and fungicides I returned to being no spray. Tony
Do you have no bird pressure? I had to net mine. I had every bird in the county in my vines when they started turning. Netting solved that problem.
No my birds have plenty to eat no need to net. They might eat a handful a year. I have falcons, hawks etc that eat smaller birds. I leave the food chain alone for the most part and it works well here. Starlings and sparrows are easy to pick off for falcons.