italageordie t1_j0bck6z wrote
I work in northern Italy, growing and grafting European heads to American roots, and it's incredibly labour intensive. We are currently at the end of a cycle, whereby the grafted plants are each individually checked by hand to ensure the graft has taken, the roots are good, and that there are no other issues, and those that pass have the heads individually trimmed by hand before being packed to be transported around the world. There's literally millions of plants, and this is just one part of job that is still mostly done by hand. It's amazing the effort that goes into it, and wish it was more widely known.
DramaticTurnover7304 t1_j0cefmu wrote
And are you guys good at it? I ask beacuse our profesors always warned us to be vigilant when examining italian Agricultural material( seed, seedlings, and all others) beacuse you guys are prone to scams and that is coming from a Balkan guy
italageordie t1_j0cmh56 wrote
Honestly, it depends. The farmers all grow their own plant material, which eventually becomes the plant at the end, so it's not like they buy in plants and just graft them. Saying that, some farmers care less about the end product than others, and while we have been sorting them (we all come together to sort them through a cooperative), you can definitely see there's differences. Then you have other factors common to everyone who grows plants such as weather and soil. Finally, the workers themselves are almost always immigrant workers who aren't paid a great deal, and it's hot hard work, so there's that. But I reckon after sorting, you'd have a plant stock that is around 99% good stock. I'd also like to say that the guy I work for is pretty meticulous, you have to work hard and pay attention but he takes care of his workers, and the end result is that he has very few bad plants that come through normally, and it's always good to know you've been a part of that!
TL:DR The plants that are grown can be of varying quality, but after the sorting process, I wouldn't worry about buying the plants here.
EpsomHorse t1_j0ejno8 wrote
Fascinating. But explain this to me - if Europe's grape vines have been being grafted onto American rootstock that is immune to this pest for a century or so, why has the pest not died out? Where is it hiding and biding its time?
Hairydone t1_j0fqo4h wrote
The American vines can tolerate the pest. The pest can still exist and survive, it simply won’t kill the vine.
italageordie t1_j0fxbdl wrote
You do see the eggs on the leaves of the American vines when you're trimming them at the beginning of summer. We are always told to tell the boss, but I'm not sure what he does about it.
[deleted] t1_j0bllps wrote
[deleted]
rapiertwit t1_j0bs3yf wrote
There's thousands of years of careful cultivation that go into those vines. You can't just take the American variety and breed it to reproduce each individual variety of grape, flavor-wise, in a few generations.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments