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

thanx for the info, Is there a spray or what can i do to prevent the mold? And is there a test that i can run on my soil for the salt content? I built a foot high raised box and filled it with a half and half mix of the soil that was there and vegetable growing potting soil from Home Depot.

I too agree that most vinifera taste good, and even some of the hybrids, such as Foch, which is also my favorite wine grape for food. Franktank, in WI you have to use hybrids, no vinifera. Even last year, terrible summer and all, Frontenac made it to full ripening. I think the hybrids are interesting grapes, with more fruit than vinifera, but more difficult to make into nice wine. As a matter of fact for wine I prefer Frontenac, but only if mixed with some CA grapes for tannins. But the hybrids will generally shine in blends, which is what I do. Scott, if you get organized, a really nice bottle of homemade wine can be had for less than $3. My blends are typically 60% MI -40% CA. CA may be $1/lb for the grapes, and MI, $60/lb (at least locally). So the wine for one 720 ml bottle comes to about $2.30 a bottle. You have to buy from someone who will destem them for you, so you take home just the juice. You have to have friends who will do it with you. Alone, it is a drag. You have to keep track of your bottles so you can reuse them over and over. I use 22 oz. beer bottles with beer caps, which I got from the refund bins. And you have to find a press at a garage sale for $10, though I have seen a number on craigslist for $100 or so. Plus spent grapes make great compost, the one I usually give to the tomatoes. The easiest way to make good wine is to ignore the cultivar and go for the ripest, highest Brix grapes. In the old days, when California Grape in Detroit had the crates outside, it was easy enough: you'd just buy the grapes with the most flies and wasps on. With ripe grapes, it is easy to make good wine, far easier than to make good beer.

I have grown grapes in NE OK for several years, on an arbor made of metal pipe and stock wire. I chose concord, simply because I love the flavor. I didn't plan to make wine, just juice. I have never had to spray. This year I dug them up and planted seedless. The first year that the vines made a bumper crop, I found disappointing because the grapes in the bunch seemed to be maturing at different times. I was expecting just to cut off each cluster at harvest time, not standing there for hours at a time picking off each ripe one, one grape at a time. Then the actual juicing was labor intensive to the wow degree because of the seeds. A friend of mine told me someone she knew actually packed the jars full of the whole grapes, added some sugar and boiling water, and then processed at 10# pressure for 10 minutes in a pressure canner. I tried that and the process wasn't bad, the seed stayed within the peel of the grape and all I had to do was drain off the juice. but the juice was watery and I would've been more satisfied with Kool-Aid. It will be a couple of years before I'm actually able to harvest anything from the new grapevines, but I planted two seedless red and two seedless Thompson. I may still end up picking a grape at a time, but at least we can eat them with no further processing, or pop them in the freezer to eat frozen later on.