JUST FOOLING AROUND WITH ROOTING BLACK BEAUTY

Late in the summer I ran into a Miss. St. professor down at the Beaumont field station and we discussed a cobalt compound and its potential effect on rooting cuttings. This compound is intended help soybean seeds withstand drought conditions. We had no real reason to expect it to have an effect on rooting muscadine cuttings. There was some space in my shade house where rooting is attempted and fifty cutting of Black Beauty we...re used as a control; sixty cuttings received rooting hormone; sixty cuttings received the cobalt compound, and sixty received both the rooting hormone and cobalt.
Today, all surviving cutting were potted with the following yield:
Twenty-six of the fifty controls plants were potted, 52%.
Thirteen of the sixty cuttings with hormone, 22%, were potted.
Sixteen of the sixty cuttings treated with cobalt, 27%, were potted
Eight of the sixty cuttings treated with hormone and cobalt, 13%, were potted.
All cuttings were held in the same rooting bed under identical sconditions. These numbers are rather small and the activity requires replication, but the inference is that Cobalt may have a deleterious effect, but no greater than rooting hormone. How about that for a surprise with rooting hormone. This the story of my life. I can’t even get the tried and proven to work.

A SECOND TASTING

It is not unusual for bunch grapes or muscadines to put on late flowers resulting in late fruit. However, it seldom ripens. A few years back, Champanel produced a small second crop that had great taste, following a good frost.

This year, several varieties of muscadines are producing late fruit. None were expected to ripen. These Lane muscadines were planted about three years back, a year ago there were a few berries, and this year several more. I was no...t impressed with their taste. They were extremely firm (tuff) and with very low sugar, not worth harvesting. This second crop
(photograph) is much better and may continue to improve. We may be getting a frost soon. Our averaged first frost is usually around the middle of November. We have received a couple of lite frosts around the area, but they were not noticed in this vineyard.

Dr. Stafne bought this article to my attention yesterday. These researchers have identified bacterial colonies that offer resistance to PD. The article may be a difficult read unless you are familiar with phytopathology and its research techniques. The abstract follows and the entire article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1094/PBIOMES-08-17-0033-R

“Microbial community structure and composition in the plant vascular endosphere has not been studied extensively especially... in the context of vascular diseases. Pierce’s disease (PD) of grapevine is caused by Xylella fastidiosa, a xylem-limited bacterium. In PD-impacted vineyards, there are observations of vines that remain asymptomatic despite being under high disease pressure. Because these vines are clonal, we hypothesized that the microbial community inhabiting the grapevine vascular endosphere is a major contributor to the disease escape phenotype. We used a next-generation sequencing Illumina MiSeq-based platform to characterize the bacterial and fungal microbiome residing in the cane endosphere of grapevine that displayed severely symptomatic, to mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic disease phenotypes. Our results provide evidence that the endophytic grapevine microbial community is composed primarily of Proteobacteria and Ascomycota with Pseudomonodales and Pleosporales as the main bacterial and fungal orders, respectively. Endophytic Pseudomonas fluorescens and Achromobacter xylosoxidans showed significant negative correlations with X. fastidiosa titer. Our data suggest that the clustering of bacterial communities appeared to be driven by the abundance of both P. fluorescens and X. fastidiosa. P. fluorescens emerged as a potential driver of the disease-escape phenotype and a promising biological control agent of PD.”

In the previous post concerning the Watson trellis Cindy mentioned that she utilizes it with muscadines. I have been giving it consideration with a small portion of Florida Home vines. The photograph shows an old portion of Watson trellis where ten Miss Blanc once grew. You an see ten Florida Home vines at the far end which are on a conventional single wire. In the foreground five new vines are in place. Before the old Watson is disassembled and removed, I thought I would... get your opinion. My basic question is should the Watson be used in the same manner as with bunch grapes, in which two cordons are developed and canes draped over the outer wires, or should it be used as with the Geneva Double Curtain trellis in which four cordons are developed on the outer wires? I hope Cindy sees this post and gives her insight. Another question pops to mind. Is it worth it? What is to be gained with Southern Home? I am not a big fan of he Geneva Double Curtain trellis due to the increased difficulty in pruning and harvest. The increased production is good, but it is a trade off. Southern Home seems to do quite well on the single wire. Its production is fine and no disease issues have arisen.

THE LAYERING PROJECT
You may remember the layering project in which muscadine canes were channeled through an enlarged drain hole in the side of the pot and the pot filled with soil. Eighty-nine pots were prepared one third had nothing done to them and served as a control, one fourth had rooting hormone, one third were dosed with Endomycorrhizal fungi. Well as you know the spraying episode killed some mother vines and canes and less than one half survived. Many of the sur...vivors do not look very good. Needless to say the experiment is gone. However, the survivors will be given a chance.
Last winter ten two-year old, bare root cuttings of Darlene were planted, two died. They are to be replaced with two of these surviving vines. The first photograph shows the potted plant and you can see it was started on 4-28, and today is 10-9. That is a little over five months. The second photograph shows the root system. You can also see that this vine received fungal spores. That does tell us anything at this point, but it is interesting that there are so many roots. This vine could have been planted several weeks ago, or the process could have been started much later in the season for a fall planting. That is another project to explore. The third photograph shows the planted vine and you can see that it is up to the top wire. This is not bad for less than six months growth with these roots. The fourth photograph shows a two year old plus vine, planted this year, for comparison. The layered vine is next in the row. Even though the two year old vine is further ahead, less time and energy went into the five month plus vine.

A SMILE AT THE END OF A DISASTER
I will not go into the details, but if you remember the project in which canes were brought through a drain holes and layering was attempted, this is a clean up effort on the pots that were destroyed with the spraying mishap. The first photograph shows posts that received minimal damage. They look quite good. However, if you look closely you can see cordon damage, on the left side of the vine. The vines being rooted look fairly good and ma...y approach a two-year old vine this year. What about the root system? The second photograph shows the root system of a Fry Seedless that was killed. The cane to be rooted, and was passed through the drain hole can be seen at the bottom right and the stem of the new vine at the top. Remember these vines were placed in pots around the first of May and sprayed in June. I think? They did not die immediately. These have impressive roots, in any event. This is one the better ones, but all looked very good. No effort was made to determine if these roots could relate to the experiment. That has been invalidated by the spraying incident. From this point on I will use this method to replace plants and to expand plantings.

The following was received several days back and I am just getting around to bringing it to your attention. Please accept my apology.
I wanted to make you aware of an educational opportunity for MS producers. Food as a Business for Producers is a workshop designed to incorporate and deliver food science, economics and business expertise to local producers. I have attached the agenda, flyer and brochure for more detailed information about the workshops. There is a $15 reg...istration fee for the workshop that covers lunch, coffee, refreshments, and conference materials. Producers can register by mailing the registration form (included in the brochure) or by emailing/calling Courtney Crist (cac400@msstate.edu) or Elizabeth Canales (dec249@msstate.edu).

Rice Hulls
I see in a previous post on processing Carlos muscadines for wine that Bill and Cindy both use rice hulls. This is a subject that has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. I understand that rice hulls increase juice production by piercing the grape skins and consequently releasing more juice, as well as forming channels for the juice to flow. This action also releases chemicals that contribute to color and taste. With Carlos, color is not an issue, but tas...te sure is, and it is sure nice to get as much juice as possible. Rice hull have not been used due the concern of their piercing action and its potential effect on the bladder in the press. I don’t need that. The bladder was blown a few years back, in my ancient bladder press, and the search for a replacement resembled the search for the Holy Grail.
If you rice hulls with, do you use mesh bags with the skins and rice hulls in the primary fermentation step? If so, do you just hand press the bags prior to going to the secondary, or do you repress the skins and hulls?

WINE FROM CARLOS
I have processed Carlos in the past, but I am always looking for improvement. Here are a couple of questions.
1. Do you include the skins in primary fermentation or use the juice only?
2. Do you use pure juice or do you dilute with water?
3. Do you cold stabilize?...
4. Do you have any special procedures for processing Carlos?