Selecting which type of grape to use is one of the most important decisions for new vineyard establishments and grower success, said Andrej Svyantek, an Oklahoma State University assistant Extension specialist in viticulture and enology.
That’s why Oklahoma State University is starting the Grape Library of Viticulture Extension—or Grape LOVE—to evaluate and disseminate performance of grapevine cultivars. The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry awarded more than $32,000 to the OSU Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture for the project.
The project is the start of an expandable grapevine library to house materials from multiple U.S. breeding programs to study their potential with Oklahoma’s unique viticulture challenges. The Grape LOVE vineyard will serve as a resource for OSU students and growers through Extension efforts, including the Grape Management short course, field days and a new cultivar page on the OSU Viticulture and Enology website. The grape management course will expose producers to new and emerging grapevine cultivar options.
Through the Grape LOVE vineyard, researchers will study cultivar susceptibility and resistance to Oklahoma’s viticultural obstacles, such as severe climate events, grapevine diseases and insect pests.
Svyantek said spring frost often is a problem in Oklahoma for grape producers, adding that studying Oklahoma’s obstacles—such as late spring freezes—from a phenological standpoint is necessary to identify grapevine cultivars with acceptable midwinter, cold hardiness and delayed spring development for frost avoidance.
