Features
Cuba Has Grape Expectations
Guelph researchers help would-be viticulturists
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Cuban wine may sound as unlikely as Ontario papayas. But a team of U of G researchers hope to help growers on the Caribbean island develop a nascent grape-growing industry that may one day produce a Cuban vintage.
A new collaboration with a research institute in Havana has already seen two Cuban plant scientists visit Guelph labs, with a third visitor expected this semester. In turn, Guelph scientists have scouted out grape-growing sites in Cuba and are assessing prospects for a home-grown grape and wine industry.
In 2005, the team received $22,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to begin collecting grape germplasm from Cuba and to develop ties with Cuban researchers, says Prof. Judith Strommer, Plant Agriculture.
U of G faculty have met with researchers at the Tropical Fruit Research Institute in Havana and have vetted prospective growing sites for soil, climate and other conditions. (One of those sites is located near the Bay of Pigs, where U.S.-backed rebels landed in 1961 in a failed attempt to overthrow the Fidel Castro government.)
Strommer says grape growing and winemaking are unusual ventures for Cuba, but its government is keen to develop an industry for tourism and for export. Not that anyone expects to be bottling anything soon. She says it will take at least a decade to develop a viable grape-growing industry, never mind making any wine.
“They're not close to wine. We're encouraging them to focus on viticulture for now.”
One species of grape is indigenous to Cuba, says Prof. Helen Fisher, Plant Agriculture. Cubans already produce wine, but it's made from juice imported from Spain and is generally of lesser quality. Fisher, who studies grape cultivars and rootstocks at U of G's Vineland Research Station, says vineyards might be an alternative crop for sugar cane farmers hit by falling sugar commodity prices.
Besides Strommer and Fisher, the project involves Profs. Annette Nassuth, Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Greg Boland, Environmental Biology. (In December, Maylen Machado from the Cuban research institute spent three weeks in Boland's lab, using diagnostic tools and genetic material to learn how to identify strains of a fungal disease.) Terry Gillespie, professor emeritus in the Department of Land Resource Science, visited Cuba last summer to develop software to be used in identifying likely sites for vineyards.
Scientists in Cuba are interested in applying what they learn about grapes to various tropical crops, says Nassuth.
The collaboration began when Strommer spoke at the research institute three years ago about her work and subsequently took part in an international scientific meeting there.
She says U of G researchers in the project are benefiting as well, including learning about germplasm diversity, about tools for choosing sites for growing crops and about small-scale farming. They've seen how Cubans use biological methods and even the most rudimentary tools to deal quickly and effectively with agricultural pests and to carry out composting and trellising.
Down the road, group members may visit Cuba to offer short courses in topics such as viticulture, plant protection and marketing.
Hurdles to the project include wrestling with Cuban bureaucracy — it took six months and a pile of paperwork for Strommer to send a payment for a recent workshop session — and helping Cuban researchers whose lab conditions are often near-primitive.
“They need international collaborations to maximize their intellectual capital,” says Nassuth.