[citation needed] Elmer Swenson worked on a 120-acre (0.49 km2) farm near Osceola, Wisconsin which he had inherited from his maternal grandfather Larson, an immigrant from Sweden.
Munson, a Texas breeder who had documented the American grape species and heavily utilized them in his breeding.
Swenson hoped to generate seedlings capable of producing high quality fruit in his climate, something few if any cultivars could do reliably at that time.
[1] For ten years beginning in 1969, Swenson took a job caring for fruit crops at the University of Minnesota, and he began to conduct some of his work there, although the bulk of his breeding program remained at his own farm.
Swenson always maintained a very liberal policy of sharing breeding selections, sending cuttings to just about anyone who asked.