Weird little grapes.

[greenishfing]

I have 2 grapevines in seperate greenhouses and normally I get bunches of big, black juicy grapes with pips. This year the late hard frost we had at the end of May played havoc with them and various other plants. One of the vines lost all it's grapes and had a general sulk. Eventually it did produce two new bunches which are growing. The other vine seemed relatively unaffected by the frost. However some of the bunches of grapes have stopped growing while the grapes are small and are ripening now. I tasted one today and they may be small but they are so sweet and no pips. This is weird but I am not complaining. I think I prefer small and seedless to large with seeds as long as they are sweet.
I just wondered if this had happened to anybody else and if they knew the reason.

[nickdub]

Been quite dry here and one of my vines has smaller than usual grapes on it - I think its down to the roots being in very dry ground and so not getting enough water, the grape is a Black Hamburg and the fruit is only just starting to change colour, so I've watered the ground now, probably too late for this year.

[greenishfing]

Been quite dry here and one of my vines has smaller than usual grapes on it - I think its down to the roots being in very dry ground and so not getting enough water, the grape is a Black Hamburg and the fruit is only just starting to change colour, so I've watered the ground now, probably too late for this year.

Mine are also Black Hamburg. They never normally ripen this early but they are normally much bigger. However tonight I will probably sit here with a glass of red, the baby grapes and some cheese and be very happy!

[roitelet]

I have a white one that has produced tiny grapes as well as normal ones. I think it is that for some reason the pips have not developed and that is why they have remained tiny. It did the same thing last year on the same rod.

[ameno]

My white grape does that all the time. Normally the grapes have seeds, but around a fifth of the grapes develop tiny and seedless instead.

[Snadger]

I wonder if cuttings were taken from the seedless part of the vine that the resultant grapes would be seedless?

[greenishfing]

I wonder if cuttings were taken from the seedless part of the vine that the resultant grapes would be seedless?

Interesting idea! The vine with the little grapes is a cutting from the other one. I take cuttings most years.

[Deltawhiskey]

Hi greenishfishing,
It looks like your problem could be either bad pollination or a micronutrient problem. Because there are no seeds and I assume there normally are, I would go with a pollination problem. It may help next year to tickle the open flower bunches with a very soft brush. I had a similar problem with my outdoor vines because of the bad June weather.

Delta

[ESBkevin]

Interesting Deltawhiskey my fancy vines (lidl specials) also produce plenty of bunches of grapes which I reduce to the recommended one bunch every 18" or less. They are about small pea size and some of the larger ones are turning red already.
They get well watered but probably not overly fed if I'm honest. I was hoping for better this year but a lot of tiny grapes looks like the crop again this year.

[greenishfing]

Interesting Deltawhiskey my fancy vines (lidl specials) also produce plenty of bunches of grapes which I reduce to the recommended one bunch every 18" or less. They are about small pea size and some of the larger ones are turning red already.
They get well watered but probably not overly fed if I'm honest. I was hoping for better this year but a lot of tiny grapes looks like the crop again this year.

Have you ever had big grapes? Are they seedless? The reason I ask is before I bought the black Hamburg I had a vine I had bought in a supermarket and it gave me tiny grapes with big pips until I got rid of it.

[ESBkevin]

greenishfing Yes nail, head and hit spring to mind. Never really had large fruit but big pips on small sweet fruit. To think I might have wasted £2.99 on a grape vine! I have been training it in a large pot with the intention of training it along the big shed I built two years ago (and have yet to fit the gutters too). Perhaps now is the time to cut and run.
Thanks for giving me the imputus to do the deed. I'll replace in the spring with some proper cultivars.

[ameno]

greenishfing Yes nail, head and hit spring to mind. Never really had large fruit but big pips on small sweet fruit. To think I might have wasted £2.99 on a grape vine! I have been training it in a large pot with the intention of training it along the big shed I built two years ago (and have yet to fit the gutters too). Perhaps now is the time to cut and run.
Thanks for giving me the imputus to do the deed. I'll replace in the spring with some proper cultivars.

My white grape is like that. They never grow larger than marble size, not matter how I thin them.
I don't mind, though, as they are very tasty. Some grape varieties are just small; I had some like that it both Italy and Japan before.
Actually, I think the small round ones are usually wine grapes. You can eat wine grapes as they are, though. In fact if anything they are usually sweeter than proper dessert grapes.