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A comment on Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement.

Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by TuringNYC on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:02PM (#24664613)
Why do you "collect cane prunings from local vineyards and use them" rather than grow from seeds directly? If you grew from seeds, I imagine it takes longer, but how much longer (vs prunings)?

I've been trying to grow directly from seeds from produce we eat at home, with mixed (but not zero) results. Wondering if i'm just making a novice mistake.

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Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by jmheflin on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:06PM (#24664672)
Great question. Grape vines have an extremely heterozygous genome, which means that their offspring (seeds) will not resemble the parent plant. This is why grapes plants are always propagated via cuttings. I wrote a post about grape clones on the site if you are interested. https://www.hefvin.com/posts/varietal%20clones/
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Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by rsync on Friday October 02, 2020 @04:49PM (#24666871)
It may interest you to know that the Bonny Doon guy, from the Santa Cruz area, has been attempting to grow wine grapes from seed:

https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/on-a-mission-the-germ-of-a...

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Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by woah on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:06PM (#24664671)
I’m guessing it reduces variability since the winery knows they are getting the exact same plant, instead of one crossed with whatever pollen blew in
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Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by gbrindisi on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:06PM (#24664667)
You can do from seeds of course but it will take longer, that’s why usually plants that are expected to grow fruits are propagated.

(I’m far from an expert, just raised in a wine producing countryside)

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Re:Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement by Veluga on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:07PM (#24664683)
Perhaps he prefers cloning a tried and tested plant over trying his luck with seeds?
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