Homegrown table grapes, anyone?

You can have homegrown table grapes the whole year round– and in your backyard yet. You can produce them yourselves with just half a drum of fertile soil. This is made possible with Bernardo O. Dizon’s technology from which you can produce them rain or shine.

Dizon’s miracle grape is a crossbred of White Malaga and a Brazilian hybrid. It is the only known grape variety that has a year-long fruit-bearing capacity as it can withstand strong winds, drought, poor soil and adverse weather conditions The other grape varieties need at least six hours of sunlight daily, whereas, this miracle grape variety can grow in shady places as it requires only about four hours of sunlight daily.

An average of five to 10 kilos a year is produced by a vine starting from six months after it is planted. If you want your enterprise for business, then plant more in additional drums. Otherwise, you can plant in holes. The fruits are medium-sized and are yellowish green which turns golden when fully ripened Sweeter than Cardinal and Cebu Black they can be made seedless when sprayed with correct amount of giberellic acid.

If you didn’t have as much number of drums that you need, there is another way to do it. Just dig a 14-inch deep hole and fill it with 10 inches of garden soil mixed with one glass of complete fertilizer. Plant the vine making sure that the roots are free to grow; then build the poles which will guide the vine. Grapes are really the most obedient of plants. You can even program them for harvesting on special occasions like Christmas and your birthday. Just prune the vine where brown meets green not later than 100 days from the date of your desired harvest time.

American viticulturists concluded that grapes in the tropics only have two-season weather—dry and wet—thus they grow wild and unproductive. In temperate countries grapes have a dormancy period during autumn and winter then grow again during spring for harvesting during summer.

Dizon, however, disproved this claim by modifying the grape culture technology. The grape plant would only grow wild if you would let it grow unhapmpered. Through pinching and regulation of primary vines, their growth could be limited thus enabling the plant to bear fruits in a shorter period of time.

Dizon conducts free seminar (on topworking multiple rootstocking and and caring for the plants) aside from providing seedlings every Saturday and Sunday at the Parks and Wildlife Bureau -Dizon Botanical Garden and Techno-Demo Learning Center of the Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR) at the Nnoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Nature Center, North Ave., Diliman, Quezon City. For inquiries, call his mobile phones (0916-201-3659 or 0921-311-4404).

Aside from grapes Dizon also have several fruit trees: among them are: Guimaras mango and imported varieties (Chokonan, Eating Green, Golden Queen, Nandocmai, Harumanis and Okrong), Lychee, Longan, Durian, Mangosteen, Lanzones and Rambutan. These economic fruit trees can also be planted as ornamental plants.