Future Focus

When WineAmerica’s Jim Trezise, a longtime NGRA Board member, invited me to write a “Future Focus” feature for his weekly WineAmerica Perspectives e-newsletter on August 22, I knew immediately what I’d write about: grape genetics. It’s not a topic that most in the grape and wine industry would say applies to them or their business—at least not in any direct or tangible way. And few would find the subject very interesting. But stick with me! What may seem like a highly technical, esoteric topic could have everything to do with your business in the not-too-distant future.

As I was assembling my thoughts for this piece, Good Fruit Grower issued a story on the apple industry’s potential plunge into new genetic territory, led by Neal Carter, co-founder and CEO of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, who invented the non-browning Arctic apple, the world’s first commercially available gene-edited apple. In April, Neal published a white paper proposing the use of gene editing to make apple-growing more efficient—more like grape-growing, in fact, with a narrow fruiting zone for ease of management and harvest. “The way he sees it,” Good Fruit Grower reports, “genetics hold the key to solving the tree fruit industry’s labor and climate challenges. ‘We’ve sort of exhausted the horticulture tools,’ he said.”

Neal took the words right out of my mouth.

Genetics and grapevine improvement is one of NGRA’s priority research focus areas. But let me be clear: I’m not advocating gene editing for commercial grape production. Whether for grapes or apples, though, the twin issues of dwindling labor availability, and increasingly erratic and extreme weather (and the pests and diseases that follow) can be addressed at a genetic level, faster and more precisely than ever—which is very good news as the runway for solving these problems grows shorter. With the aid of modern molecular tools, even traditional grape breeding can now deliver improved varieties in a decade or so versus the career-spanning timeframe it took to bring the first seedless grape (Thompson Seedless) to market. Solutions to grape growers’ most intractable problems are literally in the works right now in grapevine and rootstock breeding programs across the country: heat and drought tolerance, disease resistance, pest proliferation, amenability to mechanized production. Genetic solutions have the added benefit of reducing the need for other costly inputs, like pesticides, water and labor. Even the need for expensive equipment and infrastructure, like posts and trellises, could potentially be bred out of the grape-growing equation.

Even on today’s accelerated timeline, grape breeding is slow, quiet work. Breakthroughs tend not to be headline news—except in scientific journals. In many cases, this research is initiated or supported by NGRA. But unless you’re an NGRA member (which I’d encourage you to consider), how would you know? By attending our Grapevine Improvement Workshop on November 5, presented in partnership with the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, in the Conference Center there. The event is even titled “Grapes for the 22nd Century,” underscoring its future focus!

Join us for a full day of interactive talks by leading lights of the international grapevine improvement community, including keynoter Plant Geneticist Edward Buckler, USDA-ARS and Cornell University, the recipient of the National Academy of Science’s first ever Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences for pioneering the use of large-scale genomic approaches to associate genes with crop traits. Hear about phenotyping robots in New York, GE chardonnay in Italy, Green Revolution varieties in Germany, drought-tolerant rootstocks in California, and yes, even Okanagan Specialty Fruits’ experience bringing GE apples to market.

Whether or not you can make it to our workshop, I’d encourage you to cultivate an interest in genetics and grapevine improvement, and grape research in general. Geneticists and grape breeders are more likely to bring to life new varieties that advance the industry with the input of stakeholders like you.

So please, use NGRA’s monthly newsletter to keep up with timely research news. Get involved with and lend your voice to national (NGRA!), state or regional organizations that fund research, and attend conferences and field days to talk with scientists one-on-one. Their work—with your input—has potentially everything to do with the grapes you grow, and where and how you grow them going forward. Let it be your future focus.

Donnell Brown
President

August 2025