Okay. What’s up with grapes?
I’ve got 6 vines.
2 white, a third that’s supposed to be interlaken but they turn red every year (appears to be another nursery screwup), 2 red, and a seedless concord.
The question is this:
Every year they all mature at about 1/2 the size of store bought but twice the flavor.
What’s up with that?
The commercial growers put steroids in the soil or something?
Oh yeah, the yellow jackets get to them before I do but that’s a different problem.
The commercial growers do a number of things to get the big Thompson and Flame berries in the store. They spray homones and girdle the vines among other things.
I always heard that seedless table grape growers (red flame, thompson seedless) spray with gibberellic acid to increase the fruit size? Instead of round grape berries they are then huge and oblong.
That’s the hormone I was talking about. It thins out the berries and makes them bigger.
Gibberelic acid. That sure sounds like an internet joke so I looked it up. You’re absolutely right.
Holy cow.
Thanks.
I don’t think I want to do that, though.