283: Developing Cold-Hardy Grapes with 23andMe Technology

Most of the world’s wine grapes, like Chardonnay, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc, come from Vitis vinifera, a species prized for fruit quality but highly vulnerable to cold, pests, and disease. Assistant Professor Soon Li Teh of the University of Minnesota is developing new cold-hardy cultivars by combining traditional breeding with DNA technology—essentially 23andMe for grapes. His work taps into the resilience of native American species to improve winter survival and disease resistance. But it’s no quick fix: the process from initial cross to cultivar release takes 18 to 25 years.

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[00:00:04] Beth Vukmanic: Most of the world's wine grapes like Chardonnay, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc come from vitis vinifira species prize for fruit quality, but highly vulnerable to cold pests and disease.

[00:00:17] Welcome to sustainable wine Growing with Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry.

[00:00:24] I'm Beth Vukmanic, executive director. In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner Wine Estates with longtime SIP certified vineyard in the first ever SIP certified winery speaks with Soon Li Teh assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. He is developing new cold hardy cultivars by combining traditional breeding with DNA technology, essentially 23 and me for grapes.

[00:00:53] His work taps into the resilience of Native American species to improve winter survival and disease resistance, but it is no quick fix. The process from initial cross to Cultivar release takes 18 to 25 years.

[00:01:10] If you love learning from this show, then you won't want to miss the Sustainable Ag Expo where we bring together top national researchers and growers so that you can earn continuing education hours. And improve your business, all while connecting with peers and agricultural companies. It all takes place. November 10th through 12th 2025 in San Luis Obispo, California As a listener, we're offering you $25 off of your ticket when you use Code PODCAST25 at checkout. Get yours today@sustainableagexpo.org.

[00:01:44] Now, let's listen in.

[00:01:48] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Soon Li Te. He is an assistant professor and extension specialist at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Politic Cultural Sciences, and he is also the director of the Great Breeding and Enology program there. Thank you for being on the podcast.

[00:02:04] Soon Li Teh: Hey. Thanks Craig. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:06] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. So today we're gonna talk about some really interesting on there. looking at breeding new varieties, interspecific varieties, hybrids, for cold heartiness finding, trying, trying to find varieties well in the Minnesota, First of all though, let's talk about what is your role as the director of the Great Breeding immunology program?

[00:02:23] Soon Li Teh: so I'm an assistant professor, specializes in grape breeding and enology. And that essentially means that I oversee entire operation of grape breeding and enology, anything from the research to the, to the extension portion of it. And I also have an appointment for teaching. overarching is my focus is mostly 60% in, in research.

[00:02:42] And so I drive any of the research innovation in developing new cold, hardy hybrid cultivars. then along with that, . Contributing to the scientific innovation, to the scientific broader scientific community. And then I also have a responsibility to the stakeholders helping growers to adopt and sustain their wine grapes, , cultivation and also helping industry partners to be successful in producing wines and also promoting, , cold hardy wine grapes

[00:03:09] Craig Macmillan: Tell us a little about severe cold damaging grapes. How cold does it get there in the wintertime in Minnesota, and what does damage look like and what kind of economic impact does it have?

[00:03:19] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, so the main focus is breeding for cold, , wine and table grapes in Minnesota. And this. Region is not just focused in Minnesota, but also extends to the upper especially consider, climate change and climatic aberrations that we are experiencing. And so when it comes to coal damage in grapes, we can really have devastating effects in late fall, especially if we think about, , the, the fall frost that may arise. And it also can manifest in sort of that, , spring situation, , where the fluctuation in temperatures can really cause damage to the grips itself. And grapes, especially in the springtime, the bud starts to get really swollen and big and then they burst to give rise to, some of the , fruiting buds.

[00:04:03] What is really concerning, , during that time of the year is that if there's any frost events that would actually, essentially freeze and kill that rise to the fruit itself that we would then harvest in in fall. So there wouldn't be any fruit, if that's the case.

[00:04:16] One of the things that we saw in the economic impact, for example, is that in. February of 2024, there was a release of a report by the British Columbia and Canada in the wine industry, and it estimated a loss of 97 to 99% of vine loss.

[00:04:35] And the estimation was nearly half a billion dollar in the economic impact, , that was being wiped out from, you know, the estimated revenue for that industry. And so this is obviously a a growing concern for many regions, not just British Columbia. So this is what we feel like there is a responsibility on our end to to bring this new, , cold hardy wine grapes. On the table so that growers can adopt this as a way to continue to sustain their business having to fear these, climatic aberrations and climate change events.

[00:05:08] Craig Macmillan: I was kind of thinking that it was problems in the wintertime with, actually killing the wood or freezing the wood. It sounds like you're more concerned about the, the beginning of the season and the end of the season.

[00:05:19] Soon Li Teh: Yeah. And actually Craig, that's a really good follow up questions. I would say that for us, the critical time, when you think about, , winter injuries, a lot of people really focus on how cold it gets in the winter time. And that is actually true, but I think of it as a part of three equations. And so the first thing in the fall.

[00:05:37] How well does the grapes prepare itself towards the impending, uh, co events? So that particular event, we call it an acclimation, how well do the vines acclimate themself for the winter? And then in the middle of the winter is what we call the winter maintenance. How well can the, but can the vine maintain itself in that really chilly period and then finally in the spring? The vine would need to wake up and really start de acclimating itself so that it can start experiencing the growth in the, in the late spring and summertime. And so really looking at it as, three different equations. So what we are trying to prepare is to develop these, uh, grapes so that it can. Acclimate really well to the upcoming winter then maintain its winter hardiness extremely well when temperatures 20 degree below Fahrenheit, to 30, 40 degree, uh, Fahrenheit, below zero. And then how can we prepare them that they would actually also be de acclimating or well enough that they not gonna be susceptible to this, uh, upswing and downswing of temperatures.

[00:06:47] Craig Macmillan: so I would imagine that these, these cold hardy traits are probably due to the Native American side of the equation, things like Labrusca and muscadine Are there other native American vines that you have found or that you've or that you're including for this trait?

[00:07:05] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, Craig, that's an excellent question. , I guess I would preface by first saying that the vast majority of the grapes that are planted across the world actually is concentrated on one species, and that one species is vitis vinifera And so the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Sauvignon Blanc, the Melot, the chardonnay that we all enjoy, they all comes from just one species called vitis vinifera. And these vitis vinifera grapes, uh, while they produce excellent fruit quality, unfortunately they are really susceptible to cold damage and also a lot of diseases and pests. So we really rely on these other American grape species to help us to achieve these, uh, cold hardiness and also disease resistance.

[00:07:44] And you touch on one of them. Excellent choice. The labrusca:. And along with that, we also know that vitis riparia for example, was really has been popularly known as the riparia riverbank grapes and those also contribute to cold hardiness. And then there's vitis rupestris, and these other species out there that we really have not tapped much into their potential. provide us with among many other things, disease resistance, pest resistance, and also. and also cold hardiness

[00:08:11] But of course the flip side of using this, incorporating these different hybrids is that they really have not been selected for millennia in terms of fruit quality. So we really need to be able to tease out by combining the excellent fruit quality of the vitis vinifira, along with these other viticultural adaptation traits coming from the American species. And that really is at the heart, the core focus of my breeding program at New Minnesota.

[00:08:37] Craig Macmillan: , Which just made me think of something else. So as part this breeding obviously you're working with vinifera. Are you working with hybrids of

[00:08:45] hybrids since

[00:08:47] Soon Li Teh: absolutely. Yeah. We work on hybrids and we and of hybrids you know, for us, because. It's critical for us to find that needle in the haystack that very jackpot. Uh, We are constantly crosses to explore whether it's the, it's a initial hybrid or the hybrids of hybrid so that we can find the perfect combinations that have both the excellent foot quality and also the cold hardiness and disease resistance.

[00:09:10] Craig Macmillan: how do you go about doing that? I, I know that in some cases there are markers, genetic markers that might be associated with a trait, and so you can make your crosses and then you can plant out your seeds and you can do genetic testing to see if that marker is there, which says yes, the trait probably has moved over.

[00:09:26] I'm guessing there's a lot of traits that we would like where there is not a known. Genetic marker where you'd have to do things kind of more traditionally.

[00:09:33] Soon Li Teh: you know, If we look at how our forefathers and ancestor have been doing it in for millennias, it's always been choosing the cross between the good and the good. And, you know, we hoping that whatever that looks good and tastes good will manifest in the. Next generations.

[00:09:50] And unfortunately we know that that sometimes do not hold true. And so when it holds true, it obviously works for us. And that's really what we call conventional or traditional breeding.

[00:10:00] And fortunately , we actually now have new tools and new genetic resources and tools that enables to be more precise in our selection process. And one thing, one technology that has really been, changing the game for us is DNA technology. And one of the iterations that we are using in the, in the technology itself is called rhAmpSeq, which is really an amplicon sequencing method that relies on PCR based uh, sequencing. And that's a tool that we use in a breeding program.

[00:10:28] And something that I wanna connect with the general public out there is that the way we think of rhAmpSeq is essentially the 23 and Me for grapes, right? We know that 23 and Me is a game changer when it comes to understanding human genetics and understanding the genetic pre disposition of getting specific disease or disorder. And we have that tool for grapes, obviously not to the same scale, not obviously not to the same reliability across the board, but we have that tools right now and that tools has mostly been utilized to help us be more efficient and precise in selecting for disease resistance. And we have been slowly adding some of the fruit quality traits. hopefully down the line in the next five to 10 years, we can do that also for cold hardiness. But of course that's quite challenging because we know that coldheartedness itself is, a trait that is controlled by multiple, multiple genes. So this is really the way we move forward by combining traditional breeding where we look at the good by good, whether it tastes good or looks good. And we combine that with the precision enabled through DNA technologies.

[00:11:33] Craig Macmillan: You're really working with two different traditions here, right? Two different traditions of plant breeding . How do you integrate those two things

[00:11:39] Soon Li Teh: This is really a, a loaded questions., You know, if we look at how we have been, well, how we were doing it before 2015 in the breeding program, we would normally make a cross that gives us around one to 2000 seedlings per year in the greenhouse, and then we plant them, and then we'll make selections based on those one to 2000 seeds. Just purely based on traditional or conventional breeding of assessing it with our visual eyes. Collecting some datas, collecting datas based on the wine quality itself.

[00:12:11] But because of DNA technology, we can actually start by making, generating even way more seedlings in the nursery. And then. Plucking those leaf and extract the DNA and then run the 23 and me on those leaves, on those DNA that we freshly extracted, and then gut those results back and that results will tell us whether to keep or to discard, these seedlings.

[00:12:34] So that allows us to actually start with a way larger number. We are really getting ahead in terms of trying to get the jackpot and then get that number dwindled down to eventually that rate limiting steps of planting in the nursery because we know that in terms of the capacity that we can put in the nursery, it's around three to 5,000 vines. So if that's the number that we know operationally, we can handle. We can start with a potentially much larger number in the nursery because we know that our DNA markers can help us to kill off a lot of the vines. We'll have to TOS out eventually, no matter what. So this is a precision that really the DNA technology has changed the game for plant breeding.

[00:13:14] Craig Macmillan: And then those that have been selected, they may have the traits that you're looking for, or they may, be moved further into the breeding program. So you may hybridize from those hybrids and continue to try to capture the traits that you're looking for by crossing and crossing and crossing.

[00:13:31] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, that's, that's the way it works for us. Those that have the favorable allele or genetic copies for those traits of interest are the one that will be kept in a nursery and eventually will move them into the permanent planting in the vineyard and for us. There are certain traits that are captured in the DNA markers itself.

[00:13:50] So those, we really trust in the reliability of those markers because we have been testing that and validating the results. But there are certain things that are just not in the 23 and me marker set. So we would actually rely on our traditional evaluation methods to help us later on decide whether or not to move it further or not to move it further.

[00:14:11] Because I think one thing that's worth clarifying to the audience is that. When you run a breeding program, and in this case a grape breeding program, it is an endeavors that really takes a lot of years. You know, we would evaluate our grape seeds in the nursery for just one year or, or just one growing season, and then we will take them off the nursery because of the cold weather that will kill the vines. And then the following year, the things that get selected for permanent planting, they will be planted out there. Those are what we call the first test. And those first tests will remain there for, you know, about five years or so. And we'll make selection based on the first test and based on how well the wine would taste or how well the fruit would taste if it's for table grape selection. And later on we move them into a replicated planting for a a second test. So this is really a long term planning for us, and we can only do that. Scale it up efficiently because of the DNA technology status. Enable us to start with way bigger number. Yeah.

[00:15:14] Craig Macmillan: What would you say have been some of your successes so far?

[00:15:18] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, I would say that some of the, the major successes of the grape breeding program has really been the release of 13 cultivars. say that, , some of these 13 cultivars have really transformed the landscape. for example we know that the Minnesota grape and wine industry was really. Born from the successes of the University of Minnesota grape breeding program without the grape breeding program. Uh, with these releases of, key varieties, such Frontenac , Frontenac gris, Marquette, la Crescent. Without releases they probably would not have been a. wine industry a grape industry in Minnesota, and that's actually not a success story that is exclusive to just Minnesota because of the University of Minnesota grape breeding program. It's actually given rise to new industry in South Dakota, for example, North Dakota, Vermont, and some areas in Canada. So we are really proud of the impact that we are doing, on a national and international level, and we hope to continue to do that.

[00:16:19] Craig Macmillan: How do you evaluate wine quality? You're starting with avine.

[00:16:24] Soon Li Teh: Yep.

[00:16:25] Craig Macmillan: How much grapes do you need? How do you have to have something planted out there in the field to get to that stage? Or are there things that you can do? Are there particular markers in the wine? Are there certain biochemistry things you're looking for?

[00:16:36] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, that is, uh, that's also a lot of question. That's a really great question. Uh, Craig. So for us once we've had the vine and the permanent planting position in the vineyard, remember, keep in mind at that stage, these fines is what we call. Part of first test, meaning that if we lose that vine, somehow that vine is gone forever. And at any particular time, we tend to have about 3000 to 5,000 of these, first test vines. And so we will go about And, and go out in the fall time to start evaluating what the fruit quality tastes like. And when we taste that, the fruit quality is quite promising, and that comes in many regards.

[00:17:15] That would be sugar content, acidity, content, and general mouthfeel of the fruit flavor itself. And we would think that it's fairly promising, we would actually make a harvest. And when we make a harvest, if it's sufficient quantity, it allow us to actually a wine sample itself. And that process is called micro or mini, vacations. And that particular process then allow us to then taste the wine itself. So speaking me and my crew member, we would be tasting wines February March or April. During that window, this is the most critical window for us to be evaluating how the wines samples are taste like. And this is actually a blind tasting on our end, so we won't even know what we taste. We would then provide the score and then at the conclusion of the evaluation, that's when I would do data analysis to find out what is the consensus in terms of how things taste, and then looking back at previous data to see how those scores stacked up in, in multiple years

[00:18:13] and that cumulative. Scores and data what is are the guiding principle for for then do we move on some of these first test seedlings to make more of the same vines so that we can create a larger wine batch samples in the future and we continue to taste that. And so that entire evaluation process from initial crossing to the final release is, tends between 18 to 25 years.

[00:18:41] Craig Macmillan: Wow. How many pounds of grapes do you need to do a micro fermentation?

[00:18:46] Soon Li Teh: Well, I don't have the specific numbers actually. this would be a question, more suited for my winemaker because sometimes we do stretch the limit and, and bring it down where we only produce a wine sample of about, uh, 500 milliliter. I mean, that would be the absolute bottom minimum for us.

[00:19:03] We like to be able to make at least a 1.5 liter. For us to, to taste, and obviously a larger number would be better because that, because we know that grip's quality can vary a little bit with the different canopy that they're in.

[00:19:18] Craig Macmillan: Something else that you just kinda mentioned that I think is very interesting from other interviews that I've done is including pests and disease resistance in the mix.

[00:19:25] Soon Li Teh: Yep.

[00:19:26] Craig Macmillan: What role does that play in your decisions as you're evaluating vines and how can you tell, is it a phonological thing where you actually observed disease on plants and give them a rating? Or are there genetic markers that are tied to trait for resistance to powdery mildew or downing mildew, or something like that?

[00:19:45] Soon Li Teh: Yeah, excellent question Craig. So this really ties back to the initial premise that we talk about where, where the European grapes, the virus RA really has excellent fruit quality, but. That really lacks in terms of the disease resistance, meaning that they are quite susceptive to, to a lot of the common diseases the pathogens that have co-evolved in Minnesota and in, the North American regions. The main diseases out there is actually powder mildew, so it's the most devastating worldwide. But local to Minnesota and Midwest would also This is a disease that tends to manifest when, uh, the. the. The growing season is quite humid, which is the case for most of the regions in Midwest, including Minnesota.

[00:20:25] And we also get black rot, and we also get Phomopsis. We also get anthracnose. And along with these fungal diseases, we also would get, Phylloxera , which is an insect that causes, gall formation on the leaves. And also devastation in the roots. That gave rise to the epidemic, couple of centuries ago, more than a couple of centuries ago actually. And so these are the concerns that we actually have to because for us in a breeding program. If we can incorporate the resistance to these different traits, they also actually be able to release some of the pressure from the growers in terms of applying fungicides and pesticides. And also these chemical treatments because we think about it. For example, powdery middle is a chief disease worldwide and we know, for example, in California. Regions like that, they spray about 10 to 15 times every growing seasons. And we are not necessarily encouraging, growers to not spray at all when it comes to a disease resistant varieties, because that would put a lot of pressure on the pathogen to co-evolve to evolve and, and overcome that resistance. Genes.

[00:21:30] What we hope with the release of these disease resistant cultivar is that instead of spraying 10 to 15 times every growing season, maybe they can get away with just two to three sprays.

[00:21:40] And that's a significant cost savings, not to mention the environmental health, the , human health elements to their neighbors and through the applicators themself. And so these are the considerations that we put in when we are combining these favorable traits in, in making a new release of cultivars. Yeah.

[00:21:58] Craig Macmillan: In a very technical note, this is for my edification primarily. How do you find. A marker. How do you find the signal? I guess it is. How many chromosomes

[00:22:10] do, do grapes have Grapes Test 19 chromosome.

[00:22:13] 19 chromosomes. Okay. So that's quite a bit of information. How, how do you go about finding like what the tag is?

[00:22:20] Soon Li Teh: yeah. Craig, I just wanna clarify. know that the audience may be confused by this. So your question initially was, how many chromosomes does, uh, grapes have grapes on a level? It has 19 chromosomes and because most of the cultivated, cultivated grips, have are deployed, so they actually in total 38 chromosomes, meaning one sets from the mother, one sets from the father.

[00:22:43] going through your questions in terms of how do we go about finding those association between the DNA markers and also the disease resistance on, on all these, uh, key traits. We do this by actually, first of all, um, making a genetic map. And the genetic map is pretty much a glorified term to describe that. In order for you to go somewhere, you need a map. And so we, we make that, we generate a map by first generating, for example, a sibling families. That comes from two parents. We generate a cross between the two parents. We have, let's say about a hundred individuals, each of the individuals itself. We would then do a sequencing. As we sequence each one of them, we can actually tie the hundred of individuals together to create a genetic map. And that genetic map gives us a representations of where the markers are located. Across the 19 chromosomes, or in this case, the 38 chromosomes.

[00:23:39] And just as if you invite a friend over to your house, you tell them that, well, you just get off this freeway, 3 87 and then drive a little bit more. You'll see my house. This is the same thing for us here. Now that we have a map, we know exactly where certain markers are located in proximity to one another, but we're losing an important ingredient. That important ingredient is what are the scores for the trait of interest. So for example, going back to the a hundred individuals that we have.

[00:24:08] For a particular trade of interest in this case, let's say powdery mildew, what is the score that we assign for individual A individual B, individual one, individual two, all the way to individual a hundred.

[00:24:20] So we are hoping that the variation that we see in the scores of powdery mildew would be reflected and somehow be able to connect with the variations on the entire DNA. Of these hundred individuals. And so of course the premise is that we will find some sort of relationship and that relationship is what we sometimes describe as a co segregation, meaning that perhaps there are certain regions in the DNA that when we see A TCG that corresponds to the disease score being really high. For certain individuals.

[00:24:58] And then in other instances where the individuals are giving us non A TCG, let's say GCGA, we happen to see that that corresponds lower phenotypic score for powdery mildew. And it's by virtue of that connection that we start to first hone in on, well, which state may Craig lives in? And if we have more precision, we start to know, oh, we know that Craig lives in this particular state, but now we also know that Craig lives in this county. And if we have more and more precision, we will then find out that Craig's not only lives in this state and county, he lives in this neighborhood and hopefully this particular house. And of course the jackpot is, we know exactly where. Craig lives in a particular house. That will be when we get to the gene level, where we know it precisely where, where resistance alleles or genetic copy is. So hopefully it's a combination of sort of technical and, and, and lay people explanation to get that message across.

[00:25:58] And that is a really labor intensive process because we need to lay this groundwork in understanding the connection between the genome. The phenotype, and once we get this, this will contribute to the 23 and Me platform that we have for grapes. So I hope this gets across pretty clearly to the audience that before we can have a 23 and Me for grapes, we really need to establish Marker Trait associations, and this is obviously nothing new in terms of the grape world. This is that has been done really rigorously in human genetics that allow the development of 23 and me. It's precisely this type of marker trait association.

[00:26:38] Craig Macmillan: That is really fascinating. So tell us a little bit about some of the varieties. There's a newer one called Clarion. That sounds like people excited about. How, when was, when was that released?

[00:26:50] Soon Li Teh: In the University of Minnesota grape breeding program. Clarion is released in 2022, and this is a white wine grapes. And believe it or not, Clarion actually has a fascinating historical story. The initial cross was actually made in 1992.

[00:27:06] It was a collaboration between the University of Minnesota. And a grape breeder, in Switzerland by the name of Valentine Blatner, where we actually brought pollen of one of our variety Frontenac, and brought it over to, to Switzerland to make that cross. And believe it or not, one of the resultant seedings would then actually evaluated, deemed to be favorable and then, uh, further evaluated and tested in Minnesota. This particular selection , it's actually really promising in the early stage of the evaluation and continue to be extremely promising. However, it's actually not quite as winter hardy when it comes to Minnesota and the Midwest climate. And so for a long time we've really held off releasing this variety.

[00:27:49] This is why you see that it took 30 years before the eventual release. It's extremely suitable for many other regions. All parts of Iowa and then Nebraska, Illinois. All these regions are really suited for planting of Clarion because Clarion makes an amazing white wine. And, you know, some of the characteristic I, I can think of in terms of clarity is that it has a really nice, uh, pear, honey, chamomile, this flavor and also gooseberry. And it's just a really pleasant, uh, white wine, for me, myself, even if I take out the bias associated with my work and my affiliation. Uh, Clarine is my favorite, white wine when it comes to the hot , summer day as it is today. Right now . And I really enjoy, and when I. Provided Clarion samples to my vines and wine students, many of them noted that Clarion is really quite comparable to Sauvignon Blanc and I really agree.

[00:28:46] There's a little bit of grassy note that is in a pleasant way and I would really encourage people, to try, uh, Clarion is if your area is at the minimum, uh, zone four or zone zone five. and above you'll be suited to grow Clarion wine. I think you would be pleasantly surprised how tasty and delicious Clarion wine is.

[00:29:07] Craig Macmillan: The zones that you mentioned, those are uSDA hardiness

[00:29:09] Soon Li Teh: That's right. That is a USDA zone, cold hardiness Zone.

[00:29:12] Craig Macmillan: That's really cool, really exciting, and it takes a long time.

[00:29:16] Soon Li Teh: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:17] Craig Macmillan: I think that's one of the big messages out of this whole interview is this whole process takes a time, it. What is one thing you would tell growers regarding this topic?

[00:29:27] Soon Li Teh: Yeah. What I'll tell growers is that just continue to be persistent. You know, you are one of the most hardest working people in the world, and I really admire what you do. And just know that the. Growing grapes, whether you are focusing only on growing and or you are growing grapes and also you're making wine. I would say that just continue to, to persevere in the process. They will obviously always be ups and down when comes to being able to sustain them staying ahead of the game when it comes to managing the diseases and pest. And I would say , just know that there are resource and people that are willing to help support you.

[00:30:02] A lot of the university researchers, , in our day-to-day activity is really to prepare the solutions for you, whether or not it's immediate actionable solutions to help you care for certain diseases and to know what to do against those diseases and pests or some of the longer term solutions, like what we are doing in the breeding program. The preparation of new, cultivars that would help you to stay ahead of the game when it comes to cold hardiness, disease resistant, and also excellent for quality. So, yeah.

[00:30:31] Craig Macmillan: Where can people find out more about you?

[00:30:32] Soon Li Teh: Yeah. So I am a faculty member at the University of Minnesota Department of Horticultural Science. You can find me at the departmental website. I also have a program website called enology.umn.edu. So that's enology dot, um, as in university of minnesota.edu. That is where I showcase a lot of the. All the cultivars we have going on and some of the research update that we have. And I also wanna encourage people this, every year in the winter time, we have an annual grip research update event. And that event is really set up to help guide and. Prepare growers in terms of what has been going on as we look back at the previous years and then reflecting also on what are some of the performance of the grapes during the winter time? Do, do we see any sort of damage? So that's an event that happens in the winter time, typically in February.

[00:31:24] And there, and there's also another key events that happened in September in during the harvest season. That's when we showcase at least 50 different grape varieties that are set up on tables, on display that people can walk around and pick, can pluck a few berries here and put it in their mouth to taste and also just see the vast assortment of grapes and also activities that we do in a breeding program. these information are all posted on the, the program website.

[00:31:50] Craig Macmillan: And we should have links to those things on our show page with lots of other resources. I want to thank our guest today, Soon Li Teh. He is a assistant professor in the Department of Horticulture Science at University of Minnesota, where he is also an extension specialist and director of the Great Breeding and Enology Program.

[00:32:08] Thank you for being on the podcast. This has been really, really interesting.

[00:32:11] Soon Li Teh: Thank you, Craig. I've had a wonderful time having this conversation with you. Appreciate it.

[00:32:18] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening.

[00:32:20] Today's podcast was brought to you by Sunridge Nurseries. For over 45 years, Sunridge Nurseries has supplied premium quality grape vines to grape growers worldwide. A pioneer in the industry with a focus on clean quality vines and personalized dedication to their partnered growers has led them to become the largest, most well-respected grapevine nursery in the United States. Sunridge Nurseries continues to lead the industry, having undergone several expansions to their modern state-of-the-art facilities, and it is the first and only grapevine nursery to have implemented the most advanced greenhouse horticultural water treatment technology in North America.

[00:33:03] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Soon Li Teh Some great. Resources on grape breeding from the University of Minnesota and related sustainable wine growing podcast episodes 135. Cold hardiness of grapevines 155. Sustainable vineyard management across different climates and 217 combating climate chaos with adaptive wine grape varieties.

[00:33:29] If you'd liked this show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org.

[00:33:44] Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team.

[00:33:49]

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