Last month, the Vitis x Muscadinia project held its inaugural meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Titled “Through the Grapevine: Developing Vitis x Muscadinia Wide Hybrids for Enhanced Disease Resistance and Quality,” the project is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Specialty Crop Initiative and is in its first year of a four-year plan. The project team, consisting of 32 members from 12 academic and research institutions, aims to use advanced scientific methods to breed a hybrid of muscadine grape and Vitis vinifera that offers both consumer quality and disease resistance. Attendees included project leaders, co-investigators, students, post-doctoral fellows, researchers, staff from various institutions, program associates, and stakeholders from the U.S. grape industry. They discussed and presented their work related to the project and visited the University of Arkansas System Fruit Research Station to learn about their contributions.
Dennis Baffour-Awuah represented the Lamm Lab, which is part of the marketing team studying consumer perceptions and preferences for the product resulting from the project. Besides networking with other team members and project participants to learn about their work, Dennis also met with the two co-directors to discuss their motivation, progress, and vision. Dr. Renee Threlfall of the Food Science Department and Dr. Margaret Worthington of the Horticulture Department, both from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, shared more details about the project on the Agricurious podcast. They mentioned that before receiving federal funding, they had been contemplating this project for over a decade, waiting for the right partners and aligning with stakeholders in the grape industry interested in the subject. They emphasized that the project has gathered a strong team addressing various aspects, including genetics and breeding, quality attributes, marketing, and production. They explained that bringing these people together requires a “patience personality” that involves teamwork, patience, and effective management.
Speaking about the conference, Dr. Threlfall said they were happy to have everyone together to network. Speaking further, she said, “We are here for the conference so that we can all see what the progress is and what we have done in the year and also to make sure we are on track, and to take guidance from our partners, researchers, students and advisory board to see if we need to change track and figure out something we haven’t addressed that is going to be something that will be an issue.” She added that it is also a platform to plan and think about things that could be done more than four years from now.
Dr. Worthington added that she hopes within the current years of the project’s funding that they are able to identify some new genes that are disease resistant and then start the process of making the best crosses for the next iteration of the project to get it closer for commercial release. She added that, “On the muscadine side, I hope we learn some more about how to market these new hybrid and which of the best new hybrids coming out are most promising. And I hope we understand a little bit more about what attributes and flavors and texture characteristics of muscadines are people really looking for to guide our breeding decisions moving forward.” She also added that they hope to build a baseline of communication between the U.S muscadine research community and the U.S. grape research community.
Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Threlfall and Dr. Worthington on episode 9 of the Agricurious podcast.
