Grape
Can I Grow Thompson Seedless?
Thompson Seedless is the world's most popular table grape — sweet, crisp, and seedless with pale green skin. It's the grape you find in every supermarket, and it dries into the raisins you grew up eating.
Growing Requirements
Chill Hours
100
Hardiness Zones
7-8-9-10
Harvest
August to September
Results
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Pruning dates, harvests, spray schedules, what worked. The gardeners who get the most from their trees are the ones who kept records.
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About Thompson Seedless
Thompson Seedless is the world's most popular table grape — sweet, crisp, and seedless with pale green skin. It's the grape you find in every supermarket, and it dries into the raisins you grew up eating.
Thompson Seedless requires 100 chill hours — the number of hours between 32°F and 45°F during winter dormancy. Without enough chill, the tree may fail to flower properly or produce poor fruit.
⚠️ Common Challenges
Needs long, hot summers to ripen properly; highly susceptible to powdery mildew; requires trellising and careful pruning.
❌ Common Misconception
Will Thompson Seedless produce more fruit in colder climates?
Not necessarily. Thompson Seedless only needs 100 chill hours. Planting in very cold zones (6 or colder) risks winter damage without improving fruit production. The ideal zones are 7-10 where the tree gets enough chill without excessive cold stress.
If you plant it, write it down.
Variety, rootstock, planting date — and every pruning and harvest after that. Future you will thank you.
Free for up to 30 plants. No card needed.
Other Grape Varieties
Chill hour data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus/ECMWF). Variety information compiled from university extension services.