Many people think that Jupiter is the best seedless table grape for humid climates. It was bred at Univ of Arkansas. You can find info on there website. Am pretty sure it is the type you want and is supposed to be tops on taste.

The Fruitnut

Sorry FruitNut the lady,wants a grape similar in taste like the store bought grapes.
Jupiter is not like that,it has wonderfull flavor,and it taste like no grape that can be found in the store.
I am just Jocking,but, seriouselly,Jupiter can't be compared with,Flame,Red Globe,Concord,or others that i can't recall the name.It is just superior to all of them.
Now,how well it will grow in N Carolina that is something i can't say.I know it grows well for me here in New Jersey.

Swenson Red is a very fine seeded grape, but I think it is a slip-skin type. I am planting one this year to trial here in TN. These very early ripening types are usually not a good choice here, due to the very early budbreak and spring frost problems. However, Swenson Red is vastly superior to Concord or Catawba, (and Niagara is vigorous to a fault, not low-maintenance), and quite disease resistant, so it should be worth trying. Another grape variety that has done really well in central Virginia is Esprit, another Swenson variety. It ripens later than Swenson Red, is more vinifera in character, but very disease resistant. I suspect it would do very well for you in NC.

Swenson Red is not slipskin but is also not particularly disease-resistant - its about average for the hybrids. It has done very well for me, I am throwing out half a dozen grape varieties this spring but Swenson Red is one I am keeping. I am a bit cooler than you are but I'm a lot more like your conditions than Minnesota where the grape was developed. One negative about a warmer climate is they don't get completely red when ripe, but since I'm not selling them I don't care about that myself.

Scott

Thanks Scott. I read somewhere recently that it was slip-skin, so they got it wrong. Not surprising. You can find just about any wrong information about any plant if you search hard enough. Glad to hear it is doing well. I heard that it is prone to downy mildew, but quite resistant to other diseases. What other disease problems have you seen? From what I have read, it may not color at all here with our warm nights. As long as it taste good, that does not matter. It also may fool the birds into thinking they are not ripe.

~kiwinut

Scott,

BTW, which varieties are you throwing out?

Kiwinut, I have noticed Swenson Red can get downy, but it is more resistant than the vinafera grapes and is not much worse than other hybrids. Overall it has been an easy grower. It didn't fool my birds in spite of the light color - they got most of my crop last year. I'm bagging all my grapes in paper sacks this year when they start to ripen, I had too many losses last year.

I don't know exactly what ones I am going to toss (well, topwork) this spring but its looking like Beta (got for its disease-resistance, but its too sour for anything but jam), Worden (like Concord; already eaten plenty of those in my life), Steuben (good and highly disease-resistant but not good enough), one of my two NY Muscats (super slipskin aspect makes it a jam grape only in my mind), Edelweiss (great vigorous disease-resistant grower but too much like Concord in flavor for me), Interlaken (I prefer Canadice in spades over this seedless grape which is more in the slipskin Edelweiss camp), Sangiovese (wine grape I have only one vine of which is not supposed to be very consistent in my climate), Syrah (ditto), Chambourcin (wine grape not tannic enough for me but otherwise very good).

As you can see I am starting to realize the slipskin grapes are not something I am personally going to be able to use a lot of. They are great for jam but I expect I will just keep a NY Muscat for jam since they have the most flavor. My kids have zero interest in eating any slipskin grape fresh.

Scott

Scott, what type of graft do you use for the topworking? I have some dormant cuttings and some existing grape vines that have been in the ground a couple of years.

I'm planning to graft a couple of additional varieties on to try and get a headstart in tasting the fruit. I have 6 types in the ground and plan on only keeping the ones I like but I haven't actually tasted any of them yet.

I was planning to try grafting these dormant cuttings onto new green growth as Lon Rombough describes in his book but I haven't done it before.

Another suggestion was to try and root these cuttings and get some growth on them and then try to graft green to green.

Murky, I do wedge grafts if the size is similar and cleft grafts on the bigger ones. Maybe I will also try a bark graft this time. You need to make a bleeding cut or two below the graft point to let out the excess sap, otherwise all the sap flow through the graft will cause it to fail. I tried green grafting and never got it to work for me. Lon doesn't mention this bleeding cuts method in his book, not sure why. I don't have a lot of experience with it myself, this spring is going to be the first time I have a lot of field grafts to do on grapes. In the past I did mainly bench grafts on bareroot rootstock.

Scott