There are approximately 30,000 acres of vineyard in the Lake Erie region of New York and Pennsylvania grown on 840 farms, making this the largest grape growing region outside of California. Of this acreage, 98.5% consists of Labrusca (American Grape) varieties such as ‘Concord’ and ‘Niagara’ which are used for juice, jam and other fresh or fermented products. The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program consists of Extension Educators and research faculty/staff from Cornell University and Penn State University devoted to projects aimed at increasing yields, product quality, diversity and improvement of cultivars, efficiency of production, profitability and adoption of environmentally sound cultural and pest management strategies.

The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is supported, in part, by five county Cornell Cooperative Extensions including: Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara Counties in New York and Erie County in Pennsylvania.

Website: https://lergp.cce.cornell.edu/

Partner Educator: Kevin Martin