Muscadines 2022

Tendril power. My muscadines have a pretty good load of fruit and the vines have grown all over the place and it’s getting harder to see the upper part of the trunk and the cordon. The tendrils are powerful and in some cases cause irreversible damage from that constricted location. Most constriction by tendrils aren’t as severe as the picture. It’s almost impossible to remove all of them so I strive to keep the trunk and main cordons clear. The picture was from another grower and he gave me permission to use it.

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Curious what everyone thinks. My Nesbitt has been in the ground for a little over a year and is putting out a good number of grapes. Should I let this vine produce 30+ grapes this year or will that be too stressful and cause a lower yield next year?

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The vine would probably grow better with the fruit removed but I would let a few stay on for a taste test.

Nesbitt is a very vigorous vine so it won’t really hurt it to mature 30 or so grapes. If it was 30 or so clusters, I’d have a different opinion.

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I thought that if any of you are considering growing Oh My or are just starting, this update might be interesting. As of now the vine vigor and disease resistance appears to be about at the level of most muscadine varieties. The vines sold are small and expensive so it takes longer to get them established. This year the vine set a good crop but we have several weeks before they ripen. The cluster size surprised me in that several have 15-20 fruit but others have 4-5. The fruit size is currently slightly smaller than a marble while my Hall and Supreme are slightly larger than marble size.

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Muscadine growers: what are your current recommendations for seedless muscadines, if any?

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Do aphids just eat the tips of the new growth or can they eat the young muscadines flowers or cause them not to fruit?

Also, if you spray the flowers with neem oil can it cause the fruits not to grow and ripen?

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@figerama
If you want to control aphids on grapes and insist on being organic, then I recommend either BT, Spinosad, or Pyrethrin. Otherwise Ortho Fruit Tree Spray is an excellent choice with low environmental impact.

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The aphids are not that bad to spray as long as they do not harm to my flowers or young muscadine? have you seen aphids eating the flowers or young fruit?

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Aphids on new muscadine planting will damage the new growth if left unchecked. If the tip dies back it will take 10-14 days for the vine to form a replacement. The sooner the vine grows down the wire the faster you can get big crops of fruit (my experience). See Isons videos.

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If I need to spray during flowering I only spot spray.

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On a good suggestion from another forum member I use Pyganic which is organic. My experience was that BT worked only on insects that eat foliage.

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Aphids appear to go after new tender growth of leaves and stems. I haven’t seen them go after the fruit but I guess they could.

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My experience is only with Oh My and it appears to be doing well in my short time observation. Razz another seedless variety is very small but looks like it does well based on what I have read from people who grow it. The only other seedless one I’m aware of is Fry Seedless and all the information I see about it is that the vine is a very low producer.

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I planted 11 different muscadines last year and my Seedless Fry, Oh My Seedless and Razz grew the best but my Razz is fruiting like crazy with little clusters everywhere. A lot of fruit is not maturing but I guess it might because it was planted last year and maybe not the aphids?

I’m thinking about replacing some of the others that have seeds with Razz that have no seeds.
Razz 6-30-22

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Your Razz looks great. I might add it later. My information from others indicate that it is very good tasting and considered to be somewhat ever-bearing.

Razz taste great but I never tasted a muscadine other than a wild one. It’s been flowering the longest and is still flowering pretty much every cane.

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It has been a relentless battle with the Japanese Beetles this year but I can finally see a little light at the end of the tunnel. My late afternoon walk yesterday revealed my lowest number of one on my muscadine vines and three on a nearby plum tree. The numbers have been reducing for a few days now similarly to last year. I’m located in Alabaster AL. Are you seeing a reduction in the number of beetles?

The beatles did not do as much damage on my Apple and pear trees which they devastated last year but I’ve also put up a couple 1 acre insect traps. I have caught hundreds of thousands since last year which I would like to think has reduce their numbers as well. My problem is the aphids, I spray them on Monday and they’re back by Wednesday.

My razzmatazz are the first ones to ripen.

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Good to get a report of the traps working. I put two out this year but I waited until I had a full invasion. I’m thinking that they would work better if the traps were put out a little before the beetles showed up. Razz is the one that I should have ordered but didn’t. They look delicious.