Mutating and Breeding Grapevine in a Limited Space Through the Use of Bonsai Techniques

[Frithfolk]

EMS - ethyl methanesulfonate - tends to cause point mutations, changes in the DNA. It is not expected to produce a large number of polyploids. If your initial stock is diploid, it will come out of the process, still being diploid. THis is what @NOZZLE HEAD was pointing out

Oryzalin and Colchicine and similar chemicals, cause non-disjuncture of the chromosomes. This results in a high percentage of various polyploids. Many will be aneuploids, one will have to sort the diploids, tetraploids, the higher ploids and the aneuploids. Phenotypic traits like measuring guard cell sizes can work. Measuring guard cells can be done with a simple dissecting scope, as opposed to chromosome counting which requires 1000 x magnification.

Point mutations are rather different than the changes caused by ploidy number changes.

It seems I am not so eloquent. Yes, I am aware that EMS is not used to cause polyploidism. Thank you for clarifying that for anyone that didn't understand what I am using it for.

For those following along with my progress, today is the last day of the stratification. Tonight, I will do the EMS soak and then proceed to attempt seed germination.

 

[Frithfolk]

I've removed the seeds from the EMS solution bath. In an interesting development, several seeds were cracked. I do not know whether this is simply them starting to germinate or whether it was in reaction to the chemical. They are now germinating, covered in moist paper, in a bowl next to a radiator. As soon as any radicles emerge, I will pot those seeds into peat while allowing the others to remain next to the heat source. Here's to hoping for the best.

 

[Frithfolk]

Well, every seed has so far cracked. Yet, not a single one has shown any root development. I'm fairly disappointed. So, yesterday, I soaked all of the seeds in a weak GA3 bath overnight and today potted them. Whether they will grow or not, I do not know. Upon dissecting a few, I found them to still have firm white flesh. Have they died? Was the EMS solution delivered too late and as such stalled their germination? Were they just bad seeds? Could they still be dormant despite the seeds cracking open?

I have many questions and few answers. I'll allow them to remain where they are for the next week or two, undisturbed, and hope for their growth. Failing such growth, I will purchase new seeds and try my hand once more.

 

[Bnana]

Patience is a virtue.

 

[elroy]

Well, every seed has so far cracked. Yet, not a single one has shown any root development. I'm fairly disappointed. So, yesterday, I soaked all of the seeds in a weak GA3 bath overnight and today potted them. Whether they will grow or not, I do not know. Upon dissecting a few, I found them to still have firm white flesh. Have they died? Was the EMS solution delivered too late and as such stalled their germination? Were they just bad seeds? Could they still be dormant despite the seeds cracking open?

I have many questions and few answers. I'll allow them to remain where they are for the next week or two, undisturbed, and hope for their growth. Failing such growth, I will purchase new seeds and try my hand once more.

You may have exceeded the LD50 concentration.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I would not expect seed to sprout right away, It is winter, I would not expect sprouting until spring. Give them time.

 

[Harunobu]

I am breeding azaleas. I thought about using a mutagenic to introduce mutations. Besides the fact that I am a scientist (thougn not a plant scientist/geneticist) with currently no access to a fume hood, I think this would not be a viable strategy for me.

The problem is that the EMS will introduce many point mutations. Most of them will be neutral. They will either change the DNA and not the codon. Or they will change the DNA, but in section that is not coding for a protein. Or it will change an amino acid, but in a way that will not affect protein structure or function. And even if it does change a protein structure, it may not be an important protein. And if it is an important protein that one is changing, it is probably changing an important protein in a bad way. And even if the mutation is theoretically a 'good mutation', it may be recessive. Or it may be that I require several specific 'good mutations' in parallel that only together give the the effect that I may desire.

Say there is a certain mutation that you desire. And say you can observe this mutation. And say you need a mutagenic agent to get this mutation. You may get a seedling that has what you want, but besides the desirable mutation, it will have several highly undesirable mutations as well.

So you get a sickly plant with a desired mutation. Then you have to cross out the undesired mutations while retaining the desired one. And it may be hard to keep track of your mutation if it is recessive.

In your OP you say "I want to create new varieties that people have never imagined." and "What I wish to do is to subject it to a treatment of chemical mutagens and selectively trim away normal growth whilst keeping the visually mutated growth."

And your species is Vitus amurensis. The grape and wine market is quite large. And grapes have been cultivated for 5000 years? 2000-something? I am not sure. You want to take wild grapes and repeat the whole history of grape breeding but get a result that no one has ever imagined before? There are professional plant breeders likely investing 10 to 20 years in developing a new grape variety. And they have sequences the genome, they use mutagenic agents, and they can screen the DNA of thousands of seedling at a very young age for the mutation they desire. Or just use CRISPR to create the mutation they want right away. And now you are trying to germinate grape seeds in your flat. You aren't sure if they are germinating, but your goal is to induce visibly mutated shoots and produce grapes that 'new varieties that people have never imagined'.

I am all for promoting plant breeding. So I would advice you to look up what is a realistic goal for a hobbyist in breeding grapes. Can an amateur breed a variety of grape that some vineyard will want to grow and produce wine from? And how long does it take? And then start with baby steps. Set a clear and realistic goal, not 'new varieties that people have never imagined' or 'visually mutated growth'. Say 'create a hybrid between a local Vitis amurensis with cultivated Vitis vinifera'. And use the knowledge and genetic resources already available. If such a variety already exists, why repeat it?

Then beyond the mutation inducing, you have several other complicated ambitious goals, like growing them inside, growing them as bonsai, produce wine from the grapes, create a seedless triploid, etc.

Right now, you don't even know how to germinate seeds, how a seedling looks like normally, how to grow them to maturity In fact, if you treated all your seeds with EMS, how do you know what to look for? You have no negative control. And in the end, your selection criterea may be the sugar or tannin content of your grapes. Another user says it takes 10 years to get your first grape. That's a long time. And you all want to do this inside? And you realize bonsai will slow things down, not speed you up? Growing inside and bonsai have very little to do with each other. If you want to grow large plants inside quickly, why invoke 'bonsai techniques' Bonsai is not a 'plan to get around' doing this inside a apartment rather than a farm.

Are you sure Vitus species are the best subject for your plant breeding interests? You like grapes or wine and therefore want to breed them? There are many species of plants that could be interesting breeding subjects that are way easier to grow inside.

In the end, plant breeding is about raising hundreds or thousands of seedlings, and then making an informed selection from them. In fact, if growing vine plants inside is tricky, one selection criteria you are always giving to have is selecting for plants that do better growing inside. And that may not be what you want.

The key here is to know your plant.

 

[Forsoothe!]

That is a really enlightening explanation of breeding with mutagens. It is done in Hosta, too, but looking for ploidy changes. I would add one little tidbit from Hosta breeding. Hobby and professional breeders use special breeding Hostas as either a pod parent or a pollen contributor in their programs. They use the species as originally found in the wild and/or non-wild (genetically) unstable Hosta cultivars that often produce desirable genetic changes in offspring. The unstable cultivars are usually streaked with different colors on different parts of the leaves and petiole. Only an unstable parent will produce a variegated offspring. The most common streaked unstable breeder is Hosta 'Dorothey Bennedict'. Hosta breeding for better varieties includes applying the pollen of a contributor that has a characteristic that is desirable in the offspring of another different variety that has the basic characteristics wanted. Mostly, you slightly change the mother's predominant characteristics in the offspring. In all cases they have something and want to add a particular something else to the offspring and it's a visual thing readily visible in seedlings, so culling large percentages of off-types early in the process is possible. Even then, a Hosta candidate doesn't really settle into stable growth for about the first five years. And remember, with Hosta it's almost always just a simple appearance and leaf substance goal. I'd bet that grape breeders have similar special breeding stocks, too. Some would convey disease resistance, or hardiness, or soil tolerance, or early or late ripening, or productive lifespan, ad infinitum. Without some knowledge of that existing database, a hobbyist would be at a real disadvantage.

 

[Harunobu]

I found this article:

Grape Breeding 101 - WineMakerMag.com

Learn what goes into breeding a new grape variety.

winemakermag.com

Apparently, creating your own cultivar is quite achievable. But it doesn't seem very worthwhile if you don't have a garden where you are producing wine from your own grapes anyway.
It could be hard to push your variety on other people when you aren't even growing and making wine with your own.
The article says that the grape plants are quite quick to mature. But that it does take maybe 10 years to produce wine several times from a new variety you are testing and selecting.

So if you know you need F2 hybrids, you can do that rather quickly. Similarly, you can select the good growers in your climate quite easily. But to select those that give a good yield and nice tasting wine, that will take several years once a grape plant has reached maturity.

And instead of doing bonsai, one would actually train the grape vine into a 'cane'. Pretty sure pruning a vine plant into the right shape is a skill on it's own.
And on top of wine making, you also need to develop a wine tasting skill. You'd only get a small sample of wine from your young seedlings. And you would have to judge your work up to that point on just a sip or two of wine. Add to that that I am sceptical of wine tasting (in a double blind experiment, wines in wine tasting competitions are quite random) and taste being subjective, that is a complicating factor.

Still, it seems that it is not like apples where most new apple seedlings are tart and not so good tasting. But now that I say this, I am not sure if that is actually true. I got this idea that with apples and maybe pears the known cultivar are really truly special. Maybe in terms of sugar content? And that a random seedling won't be worth eating. It seems that with grapes an individual plant has some appear because the taste is maybe more complex?

 

[Forsoothe!]

I think it helps to be OCD to pursue something like this. Maybe, required?

 

[Frithfolk]

I am breeding azaleas. I thought about using a mutagenic to introduce mutations. Besides the fact that I am a scientist (thougn not a plant scientist/geneticist) with currently no access to a fume hood, I think this would not be a viable strategy for me.

The problem is that the EMS will introduce many point mutations. Most of them will be neutral. They will either change the DNA and not the codon. Or they will change the DNA, but in section that is not coding for a protein. Or it will change an amino acid, but in a way that will not affect protein structure or function. And even if it does change a protein structure, it may not be an important protein. And if it is an important protein that one is changing, it is probably changing an important protein in a bad way. And even if the mutation is theoretically a 'good mutation', it may be recessive. Or it may be that I require several specific 'good mutations' in parallel that only together give the the effect that I may desire.

Say there is a certain mutation that you desire. And say you can observe this mutation. And say you need a mutagenic agent to get this mutation. You may get a seedling that has what you want, but besides the desirable mutation, it will have several highly undesirable mutations as well.

So you get a sickly plant with a desired mutation. Then you have to cross out the undesired mutations while retaining the desired one. And it may be hard to keep track of your mutation if it is recessive.

In your OP you say "I want to create new varieties that people have never imagined." and "What I wish to do is to subject it to a treatment of chemical mutagens and selectively trim away normal growth whilst keeping the visually mutated growth."

And your species is Vitus amurensis. The grape and wine market is quite large. And grapes have been cultivated for 5000 years? 2000-something? I am not sure. You want to take wild grapes and repeat the whole history of grape breeding but get a result that no one has ever imagined before? There are professional plant breeders likely investing 10 to 20 years in developing a new grape variety. And they have sequences the genome, they use mutagenic agents, and they can screen the DNA of thousands of seedling at a very young age for the mutation they desire. Or just use CRISPR to create the mutation they want right away. And now you are trying to germinate grape seeds in your flat. You aren't sure if they are germinating, but your goal is to induce visibly mutated shoots and produce grapes that 'new varieties that people have never imagined'.

I am all for promoting plant breeding. So I would advice you to look up what is a realistic goal for a hobbyist in breeding grapes. Can an amateur breed a variety of grape that some vineyard will want to grow and produce wine from? And how long does it take? And then start with baby steps. Set a clear and realistic goal, not 'new varieties that people have never imagined' or 'visually mutated growth'. Say 'create a hybrid between a local Vitis amurensis with cultivated Vitis vinifera'. And use the knowledge and genetic resources already available. If such a variety already exists, why repeat it?

Then beyond the mutation inducing, you have several other complicated ambitious goals, like growing them inside, growing them as bonsai, produce wine from the grapes, create a seedless triploid, etc.

Right now, you don't even know how to germinate seeds, how a seedling looks like normally, how to grow them to maturity In fact, if you treated all your seeds with EMS, how do you know what to look for? You have no negative control. And in the end, your selection criterea may be the sugar or tannin content of your grapes. Another user says it takes 10 years to get your first grape. That's a long time. And you all want to do this inside? And you realize bonsai will slow things down, not speed you up? Growing inside and bonsai have very little to do with each other. If you want to grow large plants inside quickly, why invoke 'bonsai techniques' Bonsai is not a 'plan to get around' doing this inside a apartment rather than a farm.

Are you sure Vitus species are the best subject for your plant breeding interests? You like grapes or wine and therefore want to breed them? There are many species of plants that could be interesting breeding subjects that are way easier to grow inside.

In the end, plant breeding is about raising hundreds or thousands of seedlings, and then making an informed selection from them. In fact, if growing vine plants inside is tricky, one selection criteria you are always giving to have is selecting for plants that do better growing inside. And that may not be what you want.

The key here is to know your plant.

Yes, normally when using EMS, from my reading, one starts with far more seeds than they expect to mature specifically because the vast number of mutations at higher concentrations will cause the majority of seedlings o abort growth. I started with 1100 seeds with the intent of ultimately only having 252 surviving plants.

The majority of mutations I desire are fairly simple: increased pigment, sugar, and tannin content and also small berries. I imagine that these mutations are attainable with simple point mutations amongst any of several loci. However, some attributes, such as being teinturier, having whorled phyllotaxis, and such may be more difficult to attain. Seedlessness is a fairly straight-forward process and I wouldn't include it as a mutation.

As for negative controls, I'm not trying to publish a paper. I simply wish to find attributes that I enjoy and breed toward those. Whether they were the result of mutation or simply natural variety doesn't matter much for my purposes.

An interesting find recently was that there is a variety of grape called Pinot Meunier that is a naturally occurring chimera.When the two plants were separated using cell culture, it was found that one of the genotypes produced miniaturized growth and constant fruiting. This sub-variety was named "Microvine" by the scientists that found it. It's apparently a point mutation that gives it such attributes.

Now, I am not saying that I expect to be able to recreate that one specific mutation through random mutagenesis. However, I am considering importing the plant into China and using it as part of my breeding program. It would allow me to cut down on wait-time substantially.

You do have a very good point about how I will inevitably be breeding them toward suitability for indoor bonsai growth as that is the most pressing dynamic at play. Yes, that is a factor. Hopefully, it won't negatively affect them when returning to outdoor growth later on.

 

[Frithfolk]

That is a really enlightening explanation of breeding with mutagens. It is done in Hosta, too, but looking for ploidy changes. I would add one little tidbit from Hosta breeding. Hobby and professional breeders use special breeding Hostas as either a pod parent or a pollen contributor in their programs. They use the species as originally found in the wild and/or non-wild (genetically) unstable Hosta cultivars that often produce desirable genetic changes in offspring. The unstable cultivars are usually streaked with different colors on different parts of the leaves and petiole. Only an unstable parent will produce a variegated offspring. The most common streaked unstable breeder is Hosta 'Dorothey Bennedict'. Hosta breeding for better varieties includes applying the pollen of a contributor that has a characteristic that is desirable in the offspring of another different variety that has the basic characteristics wanted. Mostly, you slightly change the mother's predominant characteristics in the offspring. In all cases they have something and want to add a particular something else to the offspring and it's a visual thing readily visible in seedlings, so culling large percentages of off-types early in the process is possible. Even then, a Hosta candidate doesn't really settle into stable growth for about the first five years. And remember, with Hosta it's almost always just a simple appearance and leaf substance goal. I'd bet that grape breeders have similar special breeding stocks, too. Some would convey disease resistance, or hardiness, or soil tolerance, or early or late ripening, or productive lifespan, ad infinitum. Without some knowledge of that existing database, a hobbyist would be at a real disadvantage.

Yes, the main attributes being bred for in the grape-world at the moment are cold hardiness and pest and disease resistance. Vitis Amurensis actually has good qualities in these regards already. It's the most cold-tolerant of all grapes, even hardier than grapes being bred specifically for such, and it has a strong natural resistance to powdery mildew, white rot, grapevine anthracnose and grape black pox. Plus, it has some resistance to phylloxera.

So, without these concerns, I am freer to focus more on other attributes that professional breeders have to make of secondary consideration.

 

[Frithfolk]

I found this article:

Grape Breeding 101 - WineMakerMag.com

Learn what goes into breeding a new grape variety.

winemakermag.com

Apparently, creating your own cultivar is quite achievable. But it doesn't seem very worthwhile if you don't have a garden where you are producing wine from your own grapes anyway.
It could be hard to push your variety on other people when you aren't even growing and making wine with your own.
The article says that the grape plants are quite quick to mature. But that it does take maybe 10 years to produce wine several times from a new variety you are testing and selecting.

So if you know you need F2 hybrids, you can do that rather quickly. Similarly, you can select the good growers in your climate quite easily. But to select those that give a good yield and nice tasting wine, that will take several years once a grape plant has reached maturity.

And instead of doing bonsai, one would actually train the grape vine into a 'cane'. Pretty sure pruning a vine plant into the right shape is a skill on it's own.
And on top of wine making, you also need to develop a wine tasting skill. You'd only get a small sample of wine from your young seedlings. And you would have to judge your work up to that point on just a sip or two of wine. Add to that that I am sceptical of wine tasting (in a double blind experiment, wines in wine tasting competitions are quite random) and taste being subjective, that is a complicating factor.

Still, it seems that it is not like apples where most new apple seedlings are tart and not so good tasting. But now that I say this, I am not sure if that is actually true. I got this idea that with apples and maybe pears the known cultivar are really truly special. Maybe in terms of sugar content? And that a random seedling won't be worth eating. It seems that with grapes an individual plant has some appear because the taste is maybe more complex?

I concur with your opinion on wine's subjectivity. Ultimately, I will be breeding toward a taste I personally enjoy. Whether the wine-world at-large will ever think it's decent, who knows.

I always fear coming across as defensive and perhaps a bit rude, so I want to take this opportunity to say that I truly am thankful for your and everyone else's input. While I attempted to justify my actions above as best I could, I hope it is always clear that I have, and continue to, thoughtfully consider each word said. You've taken time out of your life to help better inform me and I appreciate that. So, again, thank you.

Thank you all for having me as a hopeful future member of your bonsai community.

 

[Harunobu]

The majority of mutations I desire are fairly simple: increased pigment, sugar, and tannin content and also small berries. I imagine that these mutations are attainable with simple point mutations amongst any of several loci. However, some attributes, such as being teinturier, having whorled phyllotaxis, and such may be more difficult to attain. Seedlessness is a fairly straight-forward process and I wouldn't include it as a mutation.

I imagine that increased pigment, sugar, and tannin are attributes that have been select for over and over. Also, why do you say these are 'fairly simple' genetically or biochemically? Can you explain why a specific point mutation would increase either of these? Take increased pigment. This must be very similar to azalea flowers. The biosynthesis pathway for pigments is quite complex. It is not obvious which step is the limiting factor here. Likely, there isn't one bottleneck, but it is a interplay of several steps that each with a specific mutation could increase it a tiny bit.
Your mutagenic agent is much more likely to completely incapacitate a pigment synthesis enzyme than it is to improve it. You are much more likely to break an interaction between a promoter region in the DNA than you are going to make it more sensitive to a transcription factor. Yes, you can get mutations that do this. But you may end up with 100 seedlings with inhibited or odd growth. Out of these 100 seedlings, there is one that has increased pigment production. But in that one, sugar and tannin content are down the drain.
Then you make a cross to try to restore the bad mutations, and you get 50% less diseased seedlings, but in most sugar and tannin content are bad. And the increased pigment production is gone. That is a very likely outcome. And the reason is that these biochemical mechanisms are quite finnicky and that a mutagenic agent is going to create a mess of the genome. The fitness of a wild species, or the refined cultivated characteristics of a cultivar, you are going to impair those. That is a given. And if you are lucky, you get a desired mutation. But you don't know which mutation you are looking for. If you grow 10 000 seedlings and then expose them to powdery mildew on purpose, trying to find a mutation that results in improved resistance to powdery mildew, then that will work. And if that works, you are on a long road to get that mutation, and all the desired traits found in some cultivar already, and combine them.
If you have been growing vine from seeds for a decade and you are now in a position to grow even more seedlings so you can take some risks and experiment some more, then you could use a mutagenic agent just to see what happens.

As for negative controls, I'm not trying to publish a paper. I simply wish to find attributes that I enjoy and breed toward those. Whether they were the result of mutation or simply natural variety doesn't matter much for my purposes.

But you don't know how many seedlings you are killing. Or how different their growth looks compared to normal. How do you know you are getting seedlings with mutations causing chlorosis compared to them being either normal or diseased because of the environment?

An interesting find recently was that there is a variety of grape called Pinot Meunier that is a naturally occurring chimera.When the two plants were separated using cell culture, it was found that one of the genotypes produced miniaturized growth and constant fruiting. This sub-variety was named "Microvine" by the scientists that found it. It's apparently a point mutation that gives it such attributes.

Then why not use Microvine itself rather than trying to recreate a mutation that already happened. Now I think this is just an example, but the point kind of stands. If you want nice results, you need to be smart about it.

Now, I am not saying that I expect to be able to recreate that one specific mutation through random mutagenesis. However, I am considering importing the plant into China and using it as part of my breeding program. It would allow me to cut down on wait-time substantially.

Exactly. If you let the entire world grow grapes, and one person comes up with a mutation naturally, then that mutation doesn't also include the damage of all the bad mutations that happened in the same time in the entire vine world as well. But if you induce mutations at a 100 fold or 1000 fold rate, you are going to get a good mutation that happened the last decade, plus all the bad mutations that also happened in other plants. But you get them in the same plant, because of your mutagenic agent.

I concur with your opinion on wine's subjectivity. Ultimately, I will be breeding toward a taste I personally enjoy. Whether the wine-world at-large will ever think it's decent, who knows.

That would be great, if you were already growing grapes and creating wine from them. Then you can just create a barrel of wine from your own grapes alongside the barrel of 2 of known cultivars. You are starting a breeding project and immediately jumping to the most advanced far fetched techniques, but you have no way to apply your selection requirement.
I am sure there are many people who dream about owning a chateau in France, and creating their wine there. And that sadly for many that is not realistic.
It would be great if you had this dream and were working towards it. And that in the mean time you are already trying to grow vines from seeds in your apartment.

On the other side, if you are really interested in genetics and wonder about what kind of mutants will emerge, consider using a model organism. Everyone in the lab uses Arabidopsis for this.
If you want to know if you can get seedlings with dwarf growth, different leaf shape, different colours, etc etc then consider using EMS on Arabidopsis seeds. Or maybe something that does have ornamental value, but can be growth towards selection very quickly (not sure what). But I suspect that your interests is in wine/grapes first, and the breeding/genetics/horticulture second. If not, why select a plant that requires wine-making 5 years down the road (probably assuming a garden/vineyard). If not, why not select a plant that you can evaluate after 6 months of indoor growing?

I always fear coming across as defensive and perhaps a bit rude, so I want to take this opportunity to say that I truly am thankful for your and everyone else's input. While I attempted to justify my actions above as best I could, I hope it is always clear that I have, and continue to, thoughtfully consider each word said. You've taken time out of your life to help better inform me and I appreciate that. So, again, thank you.

Nah, it is us being rude by being skeptical. You decided that you had this idea. You come here to ask advice on the 'how'. And I (and some others) question the 'why'. I am trying to shoot holes in the dream you already created. And I do so because I think that in the long run, that will help you achieve some goals.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I just want to say, many improvements in viticulture have come from amateurs. Some of the initial crosses that lead to winter hardy American-Vinifera hybrids were done by amateur wine makers. Similar, many ornamental plants, many of the advances come from home hobby growers making crosses and experiments. Hosta, Lilies, Orchids, and many more, a large percentage of new advances are made by hobby or part time growers.

So I do encourage @Frithfolk to go ahead and try.

All the pitfalls, or issues that have been pointed out are real. And I am concerned about the use of mutagenic EMS, being a potential serious hazard to your person, or any family, friend or neighbor walking in on the experiment in progress. Improper clean up afterwards could be problems for others down the road.

 

[indigoviolet]

The Pruning

I plan to create a dilute solution of ethyl methanesulfonate (0.5%) and apply it by dropper to the axillary buds before each pruning. Then, once the apical bud has been removed, I will allow the axillary buds to grow in and choose which ones to keep and then trim the rest. I am hoping that this regiment will lead to an ever increasing number of mutations in both unexpected and desired ways.
View attachment 340183

Reminds me of every presidentially pardoned turkey bird in the U.S. Which from there the philosophy it reminds me of, Greco-Roman. Thanks for sharing the enrichment.

 

[indigoviolet]

I imagine that increased pigment, sugar, and tannin are attributes that have been select for over and over. Also, why do you say these are 'fairly simple' genetically or biochemically? Can you explain why a specific point mutation would increase either of these? Take increased pigment. This must be very similar to azalea flowers. The biosynthesis pathway for pigments is quite complex. It is not obvious which step is the limiting factor here. Likely, there isn't one bottleneck, but it is a interplay of several steps that each with a specific mutation could increase it a tiny bit.
Your mutagenic agent is much more likely to completely incapacitate a pigment synthesis enzyme than it is to improve it. You are much more likely to break an interaction between a promoter region in the DNA than you are going to make it more sensitive to a transcription factor. Yes, you can get mutations that do this. But you may end up with 100 seedlings with inhibited or odd growth. Out of these 100 seedlings, there is one that has increased pigment production. But in that one, sugar and tannin content are down the drain.
Then you make a cross to try to restore the bad mutations, and you get 50% less diseased seedlings, but in most sugar and tannin content are bad. And the increased pigment production is gone. That is a very likely outcome. And the reason is that these biochemical mechanisms are quite finnicky and that a mutagenic agent is going to create a mess of the genome. The fitness of a wild species, or the refined cultivated characteristics of a cultivar, you are going to impair those. That is a given. And if you are lucky, you get a desired mutation. But you don't know which mutation you are looking for. If you grow 10 000 seedlings and then expose them to powdery mildew on purpose, trying to find a mutation that results in improved resistance to powdery mildew, then that will work. And if that works, you are on a long road to get that mutation, and all the desired traits found in some cultivar already, and combine them.
If you have been growing vine from seeds for a decade and you are now in a position to grow even more seedlings so you can take some risks and experiment some more, then you could use a mutagenic agent just to see what happens.



But you don't know how many seedlings you are killing. Or how different their growth looks compared to normal. How do you know you are getting seedlings with mutations causing chlorosis compared to them being either normal or diseased because of the environment?



Then why not use Microvine itself rather than trying to recreate a mutation that already happened. Now I think this is just an example, but the point kind of stands. If you want nice results, you need to be smart about it.


Exactly. If you let the entire world grow grapes, and one person comes up with a mutation naturally, then that mutation doesn't also include the damage of all the bad mutations that happened in the same time in the entire vine world as well. But if you induce mutations at a 100 fold or 1000 fold rate, you are going to get a good mutation that happened the last decade, plus all the bad mutations that also happened in other plants. But you get them in the same plant, because of your mutagenic agent.


That would be great, if you were already growing grapes and creating wine from them. Then you can just create a barrel of wine from your own grapes alongside the barrel of 2 of known cultivars. You are starting a breeding project and immediately jumping to the most advanced far fetched techniques, but you have no way to apply your selection requirement.
I am sure there are many people who dream about owning a chateau in France, and creating their wine there. And that sadly for many that is not realistic.
It would be great if you had this dream and were working towards it. And that in the mean time you are already trying to grow vines from seeds in your apartment.

On the other side, if you are really interested in genetics and wonder about what kind of mutants will emerge, consider using a model organism. Everyone in the lab uses Arabidopsis for this.
If you want to know if you can get seedlings with dwarf growth, different leaf shape, different colours, etc etc then consider using EMS on Arabidopsis seeds. Or maybe something that does have ornamental value, but can be growth towards selection very quickly (not sure what). But I suspect that your interests is in wine/grapes first, and the breeding/genetics/horticulture second. If not, why select a plant that requires wine-making 5 years down the road (probably assuming a garden/vineyard). If not, why not select a plant that you can evaluate after 6 months of indoor growing?



Nah, it is us being rude by being skeptical. You decided that you had this idea. You come here to ask advice on the 'how'. And I (and some others) question the 'why'. I am trying to shoot holes in the dream you already created. And I do so because I think that in the long run, that will help you achieve some goals.

What a beautiful, enriching conversation. I really enjoyed it. Personally I got a Tempranillo cutting I am wintering in the crisper, in the fridge. With a root system. I have no plans on toying with the "wild" vegetative nature of this little plant's being. I raise earthworms, composters, and plan on just hydrating the roots and mycorrhizae with fresh castings in efforts to get it to bud in spring. I plan on raising it indoors and should it seed, if that variety seeds, just give, seeds and seedlings away. In my experience with bonsai, rooting hormone and blood meal will stunt a plant if too much is used.. but it's a 50/50 chance it might die. Leaf reduction, happens.. but I am no botnist.. my question is about the grape project, ya'll are enjoying, is does the quality of availability of nutritional things in the soil, effect the genetics? Seems it would potentially.. So in whatever plant, the soil science is what ultimately make the difference, right or wrong?

Happy New Year.. whichever one you use.

 

[leatherback]

Still, it seems that it is not like apples where most new apple seedlings are tart and not so good tasting. But now that I say this, I am not sure if that is actually true. I got this idea that with apples and maybe pears the known cultivar are really truly special. Maybe in terms of sugar content? And that a random seedling won't be worth eating. It seems that with grapes an individual plant has some appear because the taste is maybe more complex?

I have a grapevine grown from seed in my garden. Just random seedlings that popped up in my yard. I have 3 varieties besides that; one white, one red both purchased in a store. And the third, a vine taken from my father-in-laws yard in Rumania when he passed away 12 years ago. For sur one propagated over dozens of generations of backyard growers. There is propagation going on in my yard as the birds get a healthy crop each year.

ANyways.. The seed-grown vind has pink fruits that grow larger than the other vines. The plant easily puts on 10ft of growth each year. It has no diseases and grows on its own roots. Fruits ripen on the vine by october.And they are sweet.

I have actually considered looking into the way to verify this really is something usefull to bring to market. But I have always considered it too much effort and very little chance that you have something truely interesting. As said:

There are professional plant breeders likely investing 10 to 20 years in developing a new grape variety.