SC - saffron-VERY LONG

[LrdRas]

jeffrey s heilveil wrote:

> I was going to stay out of this one, but I feel I no longer have a
> choice.
> It turns out that earlier in our history, a bug, the grape phylloxera,
> got
> into Europe form the Americas and began decimating the roots of
> European
> grapes.  From there, all of the European wine industry was in trouble.
>
> The only way that the were able to continue growing grapes was by
> importing American root stocks, and grafting European varieties on
> them.
> The reason is that American grapes had been selected such that only
> strains that were resistant to the phylloxera were able to survive
> (high
> predation pressure).  So ineffect, there is no longer extant "old
> world"
> grapes, because even the mighty french have had to rely on American
> root
> stocks.  (And boy do they love that...)
>
> Sorry for the science,
> Bogdan din Brasov
>

Bogdan,
Sorry to burst your bubble, but a variant of that specific fungus was
native to Europe. The reason that the fungus ran rampant was that due to
constant torrential rain fall. Roots of the grape plants were
super-saturated, and unable to fend off the fungal attack. A grape
grower by the name of Kerney, who had an interest developmental
vinicultuer and extensive ties to Europe, provided the solution to the
problem of the European vintners. While it is true that Kerney and his
associates saved commercial viniculture in Europe, its also true that
they did so using the root s of grape stock of European origin. New
world grapes had been found to be unsuitable for commercial viniculture
and all verities under commercial cultivation in the late 18 and 1900's
in the Americas were of European origin or derivation.  In addition
areas of feral grapes and small holdings survived intact. The hybrid
vigor of the american provided root stock was instrumental in the
preservation of the wine industry in France, but the decrease in
production gave rise to the vinicultural trends of Germany, Italy and
Spain[with the exception of the popular sherry of Spain and the ports of
Portugal.]  The reason that the American root stock was more resistant
was that the American vintners, unlike their cousins were more
interested in developing disease resistant varieties. Mr Kerney was more
concerned with combating nematodes rather than fungi, but still had
enough root stock suitable to supply the areas devastated by the fungal
invasion.

For further information, contact the Agricultural Department of the
Fresno State University, as they were the recipients of both the lands
and research notes and journals detailing his participation in this
matter.

Taras the Unwashed
using the account of margali
cross posted to distilling


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