Cultivation
To yield sufficient fruit, 'Black Corinth' grapes need to be carefully managed. In ancient times, girdling was a standard practice to increase the set and size of seedless grapes, until the discovery of the plant hormone gibberellic acid, and its ability to do the same thing with less labor. Historically, 'Black Corinth' stock was probably kept for its pollen-producing abilities, so other female flowered varieties (with naturally higher yields) would set full crops.
The 'Black Corinth' cultivar is also reputed to be very prone to powdery mildew and susceptible to numerous other diseases, such as downy mildew and black rot.
Greece is still the primary producer of currants, amounting to about 80% of total world production, with California, South Africa and Australia sharing most of the remainder.
Read more about this topic: Zante Currant
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