Let's Talk About Sex

I'm always amused when there is some thread drift and wine geeks start talking about the Higgs' Bosun or ThermoNuclear Burn or Case Law. It makes for some fun reading.
Another subject on which wine geeks are totally clueless is Sex. I plead mea culpa here as well. I didn't take 10'th grade Biology because ole man Hoover was a teacher I couldn't stand. So my background in Biology and Botany is as clueless as it comes.

I do understand that there's a lot of Sex going on out in the vnyds. Most domesticated grape varieties are hermaphroditic...self-pollinating. They have stamens and pistils that self-pollinate to form grapes. I believe most wild grape varieties (and some domestic ones...like Picolit) are not self-pollinating and require cross-pollination from nearby other grapevines.

So I was thinking the other day on my bike ride (always a dangerous idea)....What would our WineWorld nowadays look like if grapevines had not evolved to be hermaphrodatic?? Would vineyardists have to be out there in the vnyd doing all the pollinating?? Would we still be worrying about ParkerPoints??

Just sorta curious. Can anyone edumacate me??
Tom

[David M. Bueker]

I'm just trying to figure out which ship "Higgs Bosun" [sic] served on.

One immediate consequence for the wine world if we had only dioecious vines: is that vineyard yields would be down because you'd have to devote some of the land to growing male vines that produce no grapes.

I don't think it would affect the breeding and isolation of vine varieties very much. The purity of vine varieties is maintained by cloning, and that would still be the case even with dioecious vines. The characteristics of the grape berry are determined solely by the female plant, so male vine varieties could probably be selected for productivity, hardiness, and disease resistance rather than anything to do with the flavor of the grapes.

-Paul W.

One immediate consequence for the wine world if we had only dioecious vines: is that vineyard yields would be down because you'd have to devote some of the land to growing male vines that produce no grapes.
I don't think it would affect the breeding and isolation of vine varieties very much. The purity of vine varieties is maintained by cloning, and that would still be the case even with dioecious vines. The characteristics of the grape berry are determined solely by the female plant, so male vine varieties could probably be selected for productivity, hardiness, and disease resistance rather than anything to do with the flavor of the grapes.
-Paul W.

Thanks, Paul..that was sorta my hunch.
Tom

Speculation among historians is that the freaks of nature, hermaphroditic grapevines, showed some ancient farmers (Sumerian) that they could produce fruit more consistently and more abundantly than the wild vines, which is how cultivation got started--the farmers decided to cultivate and rely on those particular vines that produced more and better crops.

Does the “gender” (male, female, hermaphrodite) descriptor refer to the actual vine itself or just the flowers it produces?

Salute

Does the “gender” (male, female, hermaphrodite) descriptor refer to the actual vine itself or just the flowers it produces?

Salute

I believe it only refers to the flowers the vine produces.
Tom

Does the “gender” (male, female, hermaphrodite) descriptor refer to the actual vine itself or just the flowers it produces?

My take is
A male vine doesn't produce grapes
A female vine does produce grapes (if fertilised by a male flower)

A man doesn't bear young
A woman does bear young (if fertilised by a male)

One wouldn't say 'a female womb' as female is a given, but ' a womans' wonb' is OK when talking about a woman

So the answer is, either, if you're talking flowers then male & female, if talking vines male & female.

Talking of breeding vines

Many of our most popular varieties are the result of natural accidental cross-breeding in the days before phylloxera. Grapes fall to floor in vineyard, new vine grows, those that bear good grapes are selected and propagated by farmers, those that don't aren't.

Since the late 1800s vines are grafted, vineyards are now in rows and new vines mostly come from nurseries already grafted.

So grape breeding is done deliberately and it takea thousands of crossing to find one vine worth persevering with.

My understanding is that many (most?) of these crossbreeds are discarded because they are not hermaphrodite

Does a dioecious vine (one with all male or female flowers) have the ability to “alternate” (one growing season produce male flowers another season produce female flowers)?

Salute

Does a dioecious vine (one with all male or female flowers) have the ability to “alternate” (one growing season produce male flowers another season produce female flowers)?

Salute

If they do, that might explain how hermaphroditic vines came to be--a few male flowers showing up on a vine that largely produced female flowers, and the other way round...

Good question, though. I'm going to look into it.

By the way, I have seen Picolit growing in Friuili--you can't rely on those vines to run a Picolit wine business!

Does the “gender” (male, female, hermaphrodite) descriptor refer to the actual vine itself or just the flowers it produces?

For flowering plants such as vines, there are three possible states:

Dioecious plants have separate male (pollen-producing) and female (seed-producing) flowers. Individual plant bear exclusively flowers of one sex.

Monoecious plants have separate male and female flowers, but an individual plant produces both kinds of flowers.

Hermaphroditic plants have a single type of flower that produces both pollen and seeds.

In the dioecious case (which is what applies to wild vines), it makes sense to refer to the entire plant as male or female, based on the type of flower it produces.

-Paul W.

Does a dioecious vine (one with all male or female flowers) have the ability to “alternate” (one growing season produce male flowers another season produce female flowers)?

A very good question, and I have no idea what the answer is. My bet is that they don't alternate. But there is precedent for that elsewhere in nature. There are some species of fish that start out life as males and switch to being females when they are older, and vice versa.

Another aspect of domesticated vines versus wild vines, aside from being hermaphroditic, is that they flower and produce fruit every year. That isn't true for wild vines.

-Paul W.

Thanks, Paul. It's nice to have somebody who actually knows what they're talking about....a rarity on
WineBoards I find!!!
Tom

Thanks, Paul. It's nice to have somebody who actually knows what they're talking about....a rarity on
WineBoards I find!!!
Tom

None of what has been posted thus far explains definitively how (or why) hermaphroditic vines came about from Dioecious wild plants.

You would think “in the wild” or “in nature” a rooted/flowering plant species would favor or encourage “cross- breeding” rather than “in-breeding”. There are seven “life functions” which define all living organism and critical to the species survival and evolution. Some species excel at all seven functions, some excel at a few and struggle with others. Take the functions, movement (locomotion) and sexual reproduction, rooted flowering plant species would “struggle” with these functions and basically rely on “outside” help. (So basically to survive and evolve they better get real good at “getting outside help”).

Salute

You would think “in the wild” or “in nature” a rooted/flowering plant species would favor or encourage “cross- breeding” rather than “in-breeding”.

But having hermaphrodite flowers doesn't prevent cross-breeding: the proof is all around, almost every variety we use today is the result of natural cross-breeding.

Even better, propagation by humans has meant that many varieties have achieved immortality with their genese surviving intact without having to rely on passing on their genes to future generations by sexual reproduction.

The advantage of hermaphroditic flowers is an increased probability of fertilization, since you don't have to rely on wind or insects to transport pollen from another plant. You construct your flower so that, to get at the nectar, a pollinating insect has to brush against first the stamens and then the pistil, thus achieving pollination. The disadvantage is loss of hybrid vigor--bad mutations won't be covered for by the good gene from the other parent. But apparently enough cross-pollination still occurs that many (most?) flowering plants are hermaphroditic even in the wild.

Even with cloned varieties one still gets variation via mutation. Consider that pinot noir, which seems to be especially mutation-prone, has well over fifty clones, all with different viticultural characteristics. And that's not considering the mutations that led to completely separate varieties, such as pinot gris, pinot blanc, and pinot meunier. And this still goes on today. Musigny blanc comes from clones of a branch of a pinot vine in Musigny that started producing white grapes--a repeat of the process that gave us pinot gris and pinot blanc.

-Paul W.

The first hermaphrodite flowers that showed up (in the wild or in nature) were probably not “perfect flowers” in the sense that instead of encouraging “self pollination” they encouraged “cross-pollination” (for the reason suggested by Paul – hybrid vigor or just producing a much more “fit” offspring). Today we have several grape varieties (Picolit, I’m pretty sure there are others) that are “throwbacks” from that era. The development of the so-called “perfect flower” was aided by domestication and cultivation. (Man was no longer concerned with producing just a “viable seed” instead he was more concerned with fruit set and yield). Most definitely in having various varieties of vines in such “close proximity” to one another increased the chance of cross-pollination and thus the “discovery” of “new varieties”

Salute