The French vine grower François Baco (1865-1947) was active in the fight against phylloxera, which was introduced from America and had been rampant in France and many other European countries since 1880. He learnt professional grafting from the botanist Lucien Louis Daniel (1865-1940), i.e. the grafting of European scions onto American rootstocks. This was the successful solution to the phylloxera problem.
After the appearance of black rot in 1896, he began breeding fungus-resistant hybrids. Baco artificially fertilised 1,200 inflorescences and planted around 50,000 grape seeds on the estate of his friend Jules Darrignan in Labatut in the south-west of France. Over the course of several years, he selected around 7,000 from over 50,000 cuttings, of which no more than ten of the most suitable were ultimately marketed by 1912. He was supported in this endeavour by his son Maurice Baco.
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