Auburn, there is a big push to go towards “crunchy” table grapes with muscadines. More traditional muscadines have very leathery skin, and you eat them like a concord. You eat them by essentially sucking the pulp out the skins. Grapes that have this feature are “slip cover” grapes.
With the newer crunchy the skins are still pretty thick, as are the skins of most muscadines, but not as think. More importantly the skin is brittle rather flexible and leathery. The skins do eventually become flexible when the grape gets ripe enough, but they are nowhere as tough and leathery as normal muscadines when they are in that state.
Another feature the breeders are breeding into table muscadines is firmer, and firmer flesh. The flesh of Lane is supposed to be very firm even when it’s very ripe. Because of these two features, eating muscadines is becoming more like eating vinifera grapes. However, the thickness of the brittle skin lends itself to more of a sense of “crunch”.
In my opinion having crunchy muscadines make them more versatile for cooking and canning. With these new firm / crunchy muscadines you have the option of picking them when they are just shy of being fully ripe, and cutting them in half and popping the seeds out with your knife without it all turning into mush in your hands. You can basically then use them in any fruit recipe that you would use berries or pitted stone fruit. I find the slip cover types easier to work with if I’m juicing them or plan to grind them up to make jam. God bless.
Marcus
Good thought, thanks. I didn’t talk about it any with my pictures, but I also have a Late Fry, which is 20-50 feet away from the others. It has a few tiny berries on it as well, but I have no idea if they will stick. Just because pollination is possible, doesn’t mean that it is happening. So, I’ll keep an eye on them and see if they stick.
If you grow muscadines as I do, little bees are your best friends in the whole world. Muscadines mostly depend on a number of small bee species for polination. These little guys need weeds and high grass for nesting sites, and they love black eyed Suzans, blanket flowers and dandelions for forage. They have to eat even when your muscadines aren’t blooming. Their little wings can’t take them as far as a honey bee or bumble bee can go. For a bountiful harvest, make sure that the little bees have places to live and flowers with small reproductive parts that little mouth parts can feed from. God bless.
It seems that I forgot to remove most of the woodchips from my Fry Seedless (which I put on in early winter to protect it from the cold). Enough of it grew above the ground that I didn’t realize I hadn’t cleared it. But, when I was trying to put it on the trellis, I realized that parts of it had rooted. So, now I’ve got 7-8 new ones. I found one Late Fry too, so that would cover pollination if I plant them far from the originals.
They look great Bob. I have four going through the bottom of containers which should be rooted soon. Muscadines are so productive I don’t think I could ever use more than what two trees produce but I’m already looking for a place to squeeze in a few more. Hope my friends and neighbor like them. Bill
It’s been a very warm winter, but you may need to protect them a bit (pile of leaves or straw?) if the normal cold comes back. Especially as young plants are often a bit tender.
That looks like a sturdy trellis (tree…) you have it one
Did you top the tree to keep it from shading the muscadines?
I did the same with hardy kiwi, but only with a male vine- I don’t want to climb to pick the fruit. And letting it hang too long could advertise it to the local wild-life.
That’s an old hickory tree post set in the ground with concrete. The post is helping to hold up the welded wire fence encircling my orchard. That old hunk of wood lost its “leaves” long ago. It produces no shade.
I’m very excited to have a muscadine in my orchard.
I deliberately went and dug up this old post of yours because I remembered it all these years and wanted you to know your prediction has come true…only one year ahead of your prediction! Sure enough, every leaf and most new stems all have little brown spots on them this year. Looking back I think it started late last year but I didn’t give it much thought. I actually did hit my vines with copper right at bud break this year, but that’s all I did. Once I realized that all these spots are black rot I have hit the vines and leaves hard with Captan, but it has already gotten pretty bad before I realized what was happening so I may be too late this year?? Its so bad that the brown spots on the stems have, in many cases, sort of “eaten through” the stems and caused them to break (the small ones, I mean). So I bet I’m too late. Oh well, this is a good thread for helping me know what to do now.
Again, I was impressed that you told me 2 years ago that I’d get black rot in 4-5 years and you were right! GRRR!
Sorry to hear that Kevin. Get some myclobutanil (Immunox), it works much better than anything else. I do one spray per year at 6" - 1’ vines and black rot is never a big problem.
I tried all 4 varieties of the University of Arkansas new release ‘FAITH’, ‘HOPE’, ‘JOY’ AND ‘GRATITUDE’. They all required spray and I gave up on them. The reason being they are inferior in taste compare to my muscadines. And I am overwhelm with peaches and asian pear when these grapes ripen. However the plants are healthy and bunch are beautiful when I do spray them.
I am in northern VA. I have been growing muscadine for about 5 years. The season here is very short for muscadine. An early variety and a midseason variety pretty much covered until frost. I grew Ison, Nestbitt, Pam, Early Fry, Late Fry, Black Beauty and Darlene. I like Black Beauty the most for flavor. However even this midseason variety didn’t completely finish when the frost hit. I like Triumph the most out of all the plants. It is second in flavor to Black Beauty but I get to eat every single berries that is on the vine. It finish a week into Black Beauty. Nesbitt, Darlene and Early fry is in between Triumph and Black Beauty. Nesbitt’s has leathery skin and flavor is inferior to Black Beauty. We barely touch it when there are Black Beauty berries ripenin. Darlene and Early fry are good. Pam and Late Fry ripen when it’s getting cold so they are not very sweet. I added Summit and Scarlet. We’ll see how they are in 3 years. I would imagine Hall, Lane and the earlier variety will do very well this far north. I never spray anything on these muscadine and they have been the most reliable fruit I have. Also everyone I know like them.
Hi Kenny, when you say ‘the most flavor’ do you mean they taste like Concord grapes? That is a flavor I want to get away from. I have Concords growing. In the past I also grew white Niagra, which was a seeded white grape that too tasted like all ‘Fox’ grapes. Will my Hope taste like those as well?
Lane is one of the latest Ga releases and is on my top three list for taste and it is self pollinating so one plant is all you need. Taste wise to me it is as good as Black Beauty and Supreme two of the highly rated muscadines. It also ripens about two-three weeks ahead of Black Beauty which might make it one to try in your shorter growing season. I don’t know how it would do in your area but it seems happy at my place.
Hope tastes more for less like supermarket Thompson Seedless. Muscadines have their own flavor not like Concord, but the texture is something like Concord - slipskin. They taste something like e.g. Muscat Hamburg but stronger in flavor.
