🍇 Teleki 5C

Teleki 5C is a grapevine rootstock, an interspecific crossing of Vitis berlandieri and Vitis riparia, from Hungary. VIVC passport number 12324 records the prime name TELEKI 5 C, the use as a rootstock, Hungary as the country of origin and male flowers.

VIVC gives the pedigree stated in the literature as Berlandieri × Riparia. Marker analysis, according to VIVC, points to the parents Berlandieri Resseguier 2 and Riparia Gloire de Montpellier. The breeder is recorded as Alexander Teleki. The passport gives 1896 as the year of crossing, 1922 as the year of selection and 24 March 1961 as the date of protection.

The passport lists ten synonyms: 5 C, 5 C Geisenheim, 5 C Teleki, Berlandieri x Riparia 5C, Berlandieri x Riparia T 5 C, Berlandieri x Riparia Teleki 5C, Geisenheim 5 C, Hochselektion 5, Teleki 5 C and Vitis Berlandieri x Vitis Riparia Teleki 5C.

VIVC also marks the rootstock as registered in the European Catalogue of grapevine varieties and lists 36 holding institutions in many countries, from Hungary and Germany to Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and the United States.

A 2012 project report by Kocsis, Győrffyné Jahnke and Kocsisné Molnár, deposited in the repository of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library, studied the Teleki rootstocks with isoenzyme and microsatellite (SSR) markers. It found that the selected Teleki rootstocks are distinct genotypes related to each other, and that the crossing partners remain unclear and the origins given for them are partly wrong. The report does not name 5C separately.

Teleki 5C is a vigorous rootstock; you can spot it by large, round, light-green leaves. It adapts to many soil types and does best in fertile, reasonably well-drained ground. Extremely dry soils are a poor match, because under drought stress the plant simply shuts down. Of all the berlandieri x riparia rootstocks, the Teleki selections are the most widely used.