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This year as an experiment I've decided to try growing grapes from seed instead of the usual grapevine cuttings.
I got seed in late January from a local grapevine that had old dried up bunches of seeded grapes still hanging there. I had read that the seeds need to be stratified (exposed to the winter cold before they will germinate) but I reckoned that they'd already had that by late January.
I harvested around twenty five seeds and washed them in water to get the remaining flesh off and any germination-inhibiting chemicals that naturally occur. The viable seeds apparently sink in the water, so you discard the others.
I put the seeds in the airing cupboard for around a week or 10 days and the grape seeds started to germinate. I've now got around 13 baby grapevines with the first true leaves appearing. The downside about growing from seed is that they won't grow true to the parent vine. But on the positive side, due to genetic mutations you are getting new varieties that no-one has ever grown before, so it's a pioneering exercise in the making!
If anyone wants to try doing a similar experiment I'd suggest you don't get your seeds from supermarket grapes, as the varieties they sell are unlikely to give you grapes reliably here in the UK.
I got seed in late January from a local grapevine that had old dried up bunches of seeded grapes still hanging there. I had read that the seeds need to be stratified (exposed to the winter cold before they will germinate) but I reckoned that they'd already had that by late January.
I harvested around twenty five seeds and washed them in water to get the remaining flesh off and any germination-inhibiting chemicals that naturally occur. The viable seeds apparently sink in the water, so you discard the others.
I put the seeds in the airing cupboard for around a week or 10 days and the grape seeds started to germinate. I've now got around 13 baby grapevines with the first true leaves appearing. The downside about growing from seed is that they won't grow true to the parent vine. But on the positive side, due to genetic mutations you are getting new varieties that no-one has ever grown before, so it's a pioneering exercise in the making!
If anyone wants to try doing a similar experiment I'd suggest you don't get your seeds from supermarket grapes, as the varieties they sell are unlikely to give you grapes reliably here in the UK.
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