Bountiful Figs

Suffolk Red (also known as 'Suffolk', as 'PI 594333' and as 'GVIT 27') (Red grapes)

The fruit:

'Suffolk Red' is a seedless grape cultivar that is best eaten fresh, and uncooked, this type of grape is also referred to as 'table grape' or as 'dessert grape'.

The ‘Suffolk Red' seedless grape, it produces some of the tastiest seedless grapes, it's 'highly productive', yield can be '10-15 pounds' per vine, it produces 'medium to large' 'not tight' and 'fairly long cylindrical' grape bunches, it starts to produce at a young age, for us the 'year after planting' in the ground, yet it might start producing 'two years after planting in the ground'.

Very rarely a few grapes of this cultivar can have seeds, yet the seeds would easily come out with the stems, that is because it is a 'slip skin' type of grape cultivar, meaning that the skin is easy to remove. The grapes are very 'round', are 'medium to large' in size, they may be easily broken, yet they are 'firm', they are 'hard', and they are so 'tender/tender skinned' that they almost 'melt' in the mouth.

The mildly flavored grapes are 'medium to large', are 'rich', are 'fruity', are 'tasty', are 'somewhat spicy', they have a 'lot of flesh', and they are 'very juicy'. It's grapes have 'no sourness' to the skin, and they are 'candy-sweet', even sweeter than the fruit in which the 'Vanessa' cultivar produces, brix can be about '21.0'!

The grapes are a 'grayish-pink', or 'orangish-pink', that are a 'deep bright red' when properly ripe, production takes place 'early to mid-season', about '90 days from bloom to harvest', crops before the cultivar 'Delaware', harvesting takes place 'mid to late September', maybe even in to 'early October', about 14 to 20 days before 'Concord', yet after the cultivar 'Vanessa'. Grapes store well, up to '3 months'. The fruit are sweeter, a little better/more fruity than the fruit of the 'Vanessa' cultivar, and the grapes are larger than that of 'Vanessa'. The color of it's fruit could be poor some years, and some years 'the grape clusters', are 'poorly filled'.

You may 'sun dry' these grapes in to excellent 'raisins'. Such 'raisin's' made from this cultivar stores well, yet in a wet climate that would be a lot of work 'with all the moisture and rain'.

This cultivar has been used to make 'wine', yet since it's fruit are 'so sweet', I'd imagine that they'd have to be picked 'before ripe', or make a 'very sweet wine'.


Best and worst results:

To develop the true red color this cultivar needs 'full sun all day', needs the 'right climate', and needs to be 'healthy', although when it's grapes are very green, they are still very 'sweet and tasty'. With this cultivar even on a bunch of red grapes, a few green grapes can be found.

Best fruiting happens in a spot with a 'well draining soil' that stays moist, a spot in 'direct sun for a full day', a 'loamy soil' with some clay is okay.

Worst fruiting happens in a spot with 'poor air circulation', with 'indirect sun', with 'limited hours of sun', with 'poorly draining soil', with soil that is 'not loam', and a spot with loamy sand 'a well draining medium with no nutrients'. These sort of soils cause grape vines to have 'little to no crop'.


PH:

a PH somewhere between '6.0 and 6.5' maintains the highest levels of uptake by the vines of a majority of the essential nutrients. Although any PH between '5.5 - 7.0' would do.


Vegetation:

The vines of this cultivar grows 'vigorously', 'thick', and 'surprisingly fast' in our 'North Carolina climate', also in 'upstate New York', and possibly in 'NYC as well', it seems to me like it's a chore pruning them every year, they grow that fast. The smaller you prune a grape vine, the more pruning you'd have to do each year, then again the more 'plants' you have, and the more 'vine pieces' that you can root, the less likely that all your plants of one cultivar are to die if something bad happens.

In a wet climate like in the south eastern 'Continental USA', for example in 'North Carolina' grapes can easily catch 'fungal disease' if they are not planted in 'full sun', if they are in a spot with 'limited air movement', and if they are planted in 'poorly draining soil'. This cultivar has an above average 'fungal disease resistance', I have not had to spray them to prevent disease.

It's densely growing broad leaves are 'medium to large', the color of those leaves before autumn are a 'medium dark green', in autumn the leaves turn in to a stunning display of 'rich oranges', 'rich reds', and a 'golden color'. They shed seasonally 'deciduous'.

Bud Break, '2-3 Day's after the cultivar 'Concord', it's late budding.

Height: '5 feet - 20 feet'
Width: '10 feet - 20 feet' on a 'fence', or a 'trellis', or a 'arbor', or a 'terrace', or a 'deck', or a 'wall', or on some 'other support system'.

Growth Habit: 'Semi-Trailing', 'semi-downward growing'

Suggested vine training system: 'modified munson'

Can be trained using either the 'cane replacement method', or 'spur pruning'.

The first '2 to 3 years' the bottom part of the vines need protection from the 'sun' or they will get serious 'sun burn'.


Blooms:

Flower buds form: 'March', 'April', 'May', Mid Spring.

Bloom-time: 'May', Mid Spring.

Bloom Color: 'Green flower buds', open to tiny cream colored 'flower stamens'. Grape flowers do not look like flowers as we know them.

Pollination Requirements: This Grape is 'self-fertile/self-pollinating', so you don't need to cross pollinate.


Disease and other sensitivities:

Sulfur Sensitivity: 'Sensitive to Sulfur'.

'Anthracnose': 'Resists'.
'Angular Leaf Scorch': 'moderately unresistant'
'Black Rot': 'moderately unresistant'
'Botrytis': 'moderately unresistant'
'Crown Gall': 'moderately unresistant'
'Downy Mildew': 'moderately unresistant'
'Powdery Mildew': 'moderately unresistant'
'Eutypa': '?'
'Phomopsis': '?'

Is resistant to 'high heat', and to 'high humidity'.


Cold hardiness:

This cultivar is moderately winter hardy. It's cold hardy down to USDA hardiness 'zone 5b', to 'about -15° F', when the temperature drops down to 'about -22° F' then the plant dies to the ground. USDA Hardiness 'Zone 6a - 10a' is best for production, especially USDA Hardiness 'Zone 7a and up'. This cultivar needs winter protection from the cold when temperatures drop colder than USDA Hardiness 'Zone 7a', if you want high production. Here in Piedmont, North Carolina, they got hit by a late frost and with exception to a couple of leaves the plants did not look shocked at all. Sometimes the late frost here is much worst than any winter cold we can have.


Sunset Zone information:

Sunset Western Zone: '4-9', '14-23'
Sunset Northeast Zone: '31', '32', '34', '39'


DNA/breeding information:

DNA wise it's a 'Russian/American hybrid', a species cross of 'Vitis labrusca' (American), and of 'Vitis vinifera' (Russian).

'Between 1919 and 1976', four white ('Interlaken', 'Himrod', 'Romulus', and 'Lakemont') and one red ('Suffolk Red') seedless cultivars were released. They all share the attribute of having as one parent a 'Mediterranean grape cultivar'. This inevitably results in some reduction in the vines ability to survive winter cold.

Country of origin: USA: New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Geneva, NY 14456.

Hybridized by 'Professor John Einset' at 'Cornell University'
Part of a hybridization program that began in '1919', the goal of that program was to create 'seedless grapes', that are 'cold hardy'.
Crossing made in '1935'
Selected in '1941'
Duplicated in '1944'
Released in '1972'
Parents: 'Mother (flower) Fredonia x Father (pollen) Black Kishmish'
Pseudonym (Tested As) 'NY 21572'

DNA analysis by Cornell has shown that only 'Black Kishmish', not 'Black Monukka' produced fingerprints consistent with parentage of 'Glenora' and 'Suffolk Red'. So 'Black Monukka' (also known as 'Russian Seedless 136', and as 'Kishmish Chernyi) has nothing to do with ‘Suffolk’.