Hello everyone, I’m new here but have spent the last 3 weeks scouring the boards as I begin my venture of growing fruit at the new house. I’ve planted 3 muscadines as well as 2 concords and 3 blueberry bushes. I’ve been reading as much as I can for these plants but have come to my first crossroads with my muscadines.
After the late frost central NC received a few weeks ago, I started noticing black spotting on the leaves and some browning to the top tendrils. From what I can tell, this appears to be a mild case of black rot that just happened to coincide with the low temps.
I figured it wasn’t worth starting a new post so I hope you all don’t mind if I ask about it here.
This is a great place to ask questions about muscadines and welcome to the forum. If this was my leaves I would see if it gets worst before doing anything about the spots. If it is really bothering you Immunox can be sprayed on. I don’t know how well the muscadines vines do in your location but at my place the vine is pretty much bulletproof.
Really appreciate the feedback. I will say, it does appear on most leaves and have been taking the “wait and see” approach the past week. This is my first time growing anything other than herbs or blackberries so probably just a little over anxious. I’ll continue to monitor the situation and see how it plays out.
Lucky for me, I seem to be in muscadine country in my part of NC, so climate should be ideal for the grapes. My biggest fear is the “urban” soil that seems to predominate my subdivision. Submitting a soil sample test to the NCDA to see what they say (I know, I should’ve gm done this before planting but I’m a bit impulsive and impatient and understand muscadine don’t require the most fertile soil to thrive). I will be following Ison’s recommended fertilizing schedule with minor tweaks based on the feedback from my soil test. I may be impulsive, but I like to dive in head first into these sorts of things.
Two more questions for those more experienced:
How quickly can you expect these vines to grow in ther vertical direction (with proper pruning of course)
I understand third year plants are when we expect fruit, does that mean 3yr old plants or does that mean 3 years after being planted in their new home?
Thanks again for the warm welcome, I’ve really enjoyed reading through so many of these threads already.
Three years after planting in their new home is when you should get fruit. With a LOT of work and knowing what you are doing, you can get a small crop the second year. IMO, it is better to focus on growing the vine and wait for fruit until the vine can support a crop.
Amend your soil by adding organic matter on top. You can use peat moss if nothing else is available. Compost works very well to ramp up vine growth. Be careful about using any kind of tree bark as it absorbs nitrogen from the soil. You can still use bark, just have to be very diligent to keep enough nitrogen on it to avoid depleting the oil.
I’m training mine to be on top of a pergola and live in a slightly colder area. In one growing season one vine managed to get to the top of the ~10’ pergola and then another 4’ across it. Another vine that had its planting delayed by a month grew about 8’ tall.
Thanks for the answers and tips. I’ve put down some leftover “garden soil” underneath a portion of the trellis in hopes to improve available nutrients. My plan was to add more of this soil along with peat moss and compost under the rest of the trellis as I know my soil is likely lacking in any real nutrients (I’ll find out just how lacking in a week or so once the soil tests come back). I also placed some pine bark mulch at the last 4 feet of the trellis but will move that to the edges where grass/weeds need to be better controlled than they are.
Aside from fertilizing, constant pruning of axil buds/new lateral growth, watering, and keeping the adjacent area weed free, is there any additional work I should be considering to ensure a strong trunk and root system?
Thanks again folks. Unfortunately, it looks like it may be getting worse. I’m guessing this may be due to the cooler than normal temperatures we’ve been having and the fact that these plants are still quite young. I’m going to wait until next week before jumping to any conclusions though.
I’m also guessing the temps have been the reason my triumph that was delivered as a dormant bare root plant about a month ago still hasn’t had any bud break. It seems like the buds get marginally larger dash week but I figured they should’ve broken by now.
I think you are worrying too much, its either going to leaf out and grow a lot or it will die and you just plant a replacement. By all accounts I have read muscadines are amongst the easiest and least fussy fruit you can grow.
Growing fruiting perennials is very much a slow learning game where you learn a different lesson each year and some mistakes are inevitable. Its great that you are passionate about it, but don’t try to compress it all into your first year. I like to set a “new years resolution” for fruit growing each year for a thing to focus on - this year its bird protection, lol.
EDIT: The best thing you can do is pull up your your local extension office’s / state university guide to growing muscadine and focus on following their recommendations. The first year of growing the planting and pruning are most important and you already did half that work. For pruning I think the gold standard is to watch the videos put out by Ison’s nursery:
Agreed on every aspect of your post. I guess I’m just hoping to have a good foundation for these muscadines for the years to come. And considering the state of my yard’s soil (glorified concrete) I’m just anxious about anything growing here.
As you mentioned, at worst if these don’t survive the summer I can spend the fall making proper adjustments to the soil composition and full blown cultivation of the surrounding soil and will be even more prepared for next year.
Appreciate the Ison’s link, though I’ve watched about every video and read most articles they’ve put out. It’s definitely a good resource for anyone browsing this thread.
Muscadines have a taste all their own…a sort of musky or wine like taste. They are very sweet along with this taste. They are a lot of work to juice properly to get that taste in the jelly/jam but when you do it is fantastic. It really takes crushing the very tough skins before juicing and avoiding crushing the seeds (that are bitter). I’ve finally figured out how to do it easily (because I like easy to do things over a lot of work!) to get that muscadine flavor. Bill does a lot of cooking with muscadines. I’m sure he has a fantastic method of getting his juice and making jelly.
@mrsg47 , @k8tpayaso
Your description of jelly/jam correlates with my taste. Our favorite is making cobblers with muscadines and I think they taste similar to blackberries or sour cherry but definitely different. As stated they are unlike any other fruit I have tasted. Using the whole fruit minus the seeds took a lot of time to process. I’m hoping that my addition of the seedless variety Oh My will allow me to save some time preparing them.
Thanks Bill! Muscadines here are very small and almost golden yellow. They make a very sweet wine. Your muscadines are enormous compared to our grapes. I might be confusing them with Muscat grapes.
After doing a bit of research today, I found out France does not grow muscadines. Your warm, humid southern climes to not match ours. I have never tried one. Can’t have everything! Love your pictures though!
The only grape I have that is even part
Muscadine is
Bob Zehnder Z74.21.5
It’s only about 1/8 Muscadine
Female flowers and
it does ripen up here, though it’s a late one.
I think the hybrids are the best way to get Muscadine further north.
I’m not familiar with it. Got a few questions. How does it taste? Is it a wine or table type? What variety do you use to pollinate the female flowers? Hope it does well in your area. Thanks, Bill
it’s a small cluster and small berry.
female
Highly vigorous and productive.
Bob liked to use it for breeding because of its great disease resistance.
Fruit looks like a French hybrid
Foch or Leon Millot.
It does ripen up here, but it’s late.
