We recently ripped out a Corinth grape that wouldn’t play nice with its neighbors and are replacing it with something we hope can just get along. Sometimes you just have to start over.
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The Corinth grape was just rude, as you can see in the pictures. There are actually three other grapes under all that mess, but the Corinth just wasn’t going to share. It also got powdery mildew up the wazoo! This new baby (isn’t it just so cute!!), is a Thomcord, a hybrid between Thompson seedless and Concord. It’s supposed to have Concord’s flavor, and Thompson’s seedlessness and heat tolerance, and should also be more disease resistant.
The irony is that this hybrid was developed right here in Central California, but I had to order it all the way from Missouri! For some reason, everyone else knows about this grape except for the people that live closest to its birthplace!
Mostly Greek 
What?! Thomcord? That sounds weird. Thompson seedless does not do so well here because the weather does not get very warm. concord is a standard. Putting the two together still seems weird though.
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The funny thing is that these grapes are sold in a variety of stores, including Trader Joes. Yet when I tried finding a local nursery that carried it there were none!
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Perhaps because nurseries are not convinced it is a good idea.
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No, they hadn’t even heard of it! All the information I’ve scrounged up shows that it is actually pretty good for our climate, and people that I’ve talked to that have had them said they taste good. Seeing as how they are willing to sell other plants that are crappy, I’m not sure why they would hesitate now!
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Nurserymen are not so easily convinced. It seems that everything is better when new and improved. As a grower of rhododendrons and a former grower of citrus, I find that the cultivars that have been around for centuries are usually better than newer cultivars that are trendy. I once grew ‘Tahitian Dawn’ rhododendron because every collector wanted it. I still hate it. It was an inferior plant with trashy blooms. However, every review that I have ever seen about it rates it extremely well. None of my clients have ever complained about it. It is still too new for that. Once the next big thing comes out, people will start talking about how inferior ‘Tahitian Dawn’ was. Only rarely is a new introduction as good as it is supposed to be. This new grape hybrid could be one of those, but it is hard to say without being familiar with it.
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This was first crossed in the early 80s, but didn’t become available for use until 2003. The Corinth grape I took out was problematic from the beginning. Only time will tell with the Thompcord, I suppose! I get what you mean about the trendy stuff, though.
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