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Jon's Wild Riparia Pictures.

22 July 2007

I thought I would share these pictures of some wild riparia vines I found near Sioux Falls, SD.  I have found many wild riparia vines in my area, but none of them display the cluster size or fruit fullness of these.  Are these anything special, or just better than most wild Riparia vines?  I would love to hear from anyone with experience with the species. This fall, I will test the sugar and acid levels of some of the vines to see what kind of  chemistry they offer.  Brief descriptions of each picture are below:

1. Small cluster of berries starting to show color.    2. A small, but well filled, cluster            

3-7.  Some nice clusters, including a few winged bunches.

8-12. Pictures displaying just how heavily these vines are bearing.

These vines were found in a forested area about 100-200 m from a river. Some were growing up into pine trees, and some were growing along a fence that borders the interstate.  I have 1 year old vines growing in my vineyard from cuttings taken from these last year.  I am excited to see the F1s these will produce. Thanks for looking,

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These vines look to be disease free.  I did find a few other male vines in the area which appeared to have foliar Phylloxera and fan leaf.  Since these were unaffected, and have apparently been exposed to the transmitters, that tells me they must be resistant.  There were no signs of fungal disease on any of the vines.  They also have to be extremely cold hardy, as winters in my area get extremely cold.  The trunks on a couple of these were 3 inches + in diameter, so they have been around for awhile.

It is certainly possible that these are chance hybrids, but everything besides the fruit looks identical to all the other Riparia I have seen.  The tendrils are also not continuous, which at least points away from any labrusca parentage, though not %100.  Leave shape, size, color and texture all say Riparia.  Does anyone know if all of Beta's leaves are paired with a tendril/cluster?

Even if they are hybrids it doesn't make me any less excited, but I am still thinking they are pure Riparia.

July 21 - 2007:     I am not exactly sure why the berries in number 5 are smaller.  My guess would be a difference in bloom time or age/maturity. The pictures are of two different vines found very close to one another.  (Vine 1 = Pictures 1,2,3,4,6,8,9,10,11,12. Vine 2 = Pictues 5 and 7.)  The clusters of each individual vine were quite uniform, but vine 2 was maybe a bit behind.  Vine 2 also looked younger, much younger.  So it could be that the mature vine is producing larger berries.

Jon