So my first wave of grapes are ripening. Two questions
Is it best to just let a cluster fully ripen(mostly concerned that some will overripen by the time they all do)? They are thomcord fwiw
Second, is this presumably fungus, should i avoid the grapes with it?
Is that anthracnose caused by (elsinoe ampelina fungus)?
I have different issues on my grapes, Japanese beetles, and downy mildew I think:
Insect and Disease Identification Thread - #2232 by zone7a
I also have a thomcord (my most vigorous of the three I planted!)
That’s very uneven ripening but probably normal with that variety. None of those berries will be optimally ripe but you may need to start eating them before the fungus takes them all.
And yes, I’d avoid eating the diseased berries.
Next year you may want to consider spraying.
Grapes will color up long before they are sweet enough to eat, especially in cooler regions. For wine grapes, at the stage you’re at, you’re looking at one, maybe two more months until harvest. Grapes for fresh eating don’t need quite as long, but, ignoring birds and diseases, overripeness isn’t really a concern. Depending on your local climate, disease pressure might be the deciding factor on when you pick rather than ripeness.
To me it just looks like the fruit is halfway through veraison. It can take a couple weeks for all the berries on a single cluster to color up.
So - still trying some of these grapes and they definitely seem to have seeds, so I assume at some point the graft must have died(though in my pics it never looks like it did) - how hard are grapes to graft once they are a few years old?
You mentioned the variety is thomcord in your opening post. Keep in mind that though that variety is nominally seedless, in that it rarely, if ever produces viable seed short of embryo rescue, it also has a tendency in many climates to produce large, and often hard/woody seed remnants. Although these are not viable seeds technically, they can easily be confused with that. Point being, the variety you have could easily be thomcord.
I’ve considered that but cant find anyone explaining what that tastes like. Maybe i can find some thomcord at the store. I will say that they have a very intense grape flavor.
You can tell just by looking at the seed or seed trace. If you can pinch it apart with your fingers, or it looks malformed, it’s a dead seed trace. A live seed you can’t crush with your fingers.
No commonly used grape rootstock looks like that, so it’s either Thomcord or a nursery mixup. Like @SethDoty said, Thomcord will have seed traces that can be large enough to be noticeable.
Grapes are pretty easy to graft if you do it at the right time and control bleeding. They produce so much callus that you don’t need to line everything up perfectly to get it to take.
Im wondering if I’ve never had grapes with seeds before, are they hard enough that you would just spit them out whole? Or could you potentially break a grape seed via chewing.
If you have good strong teeth you wouldn’t have an issue crushing grape seed with your teeth. They are hard, but not that hard. They do have bitter compounds in them though, so many people don’t care for that. I’ve eaten so many that way though that I’ll crunch them up, seeds and all without even noticing the seeds unless I think about it. Most people would spit the seeds out though.
Yeah that’s kinda why i was trying to see if they were seed husks or actual seeds, because these grapes do have a pretty annoying aspect to the seeds, not like a watermelon where they are inconsequential when they are ‘seedless’ and you eat an unfinished seed.
Anyone trying Oh My Muscadines? I tried some cotton candy grapes and they’re great to be honest, but trying to find something that will be a bit less maintenance here in the south.
