Can’t say that I have ever paid any real attention to the flowering period. I think last year when I looked the tiny fruit had already formed. Do you know off-hand how many days the flowering period lasts and what to exactly look for before-hand?
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Muscadines flower over an extended period of up to 2 months. Buds break usually after last frost followed by flowers about 3 weeks later. If the vine is damaged or buds are killed by frost, it will start over with latent buds that also produce flowers and fruit.
Scuppernong is the great great grandparent of Carlos.
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Instead of asking about the flowering period I should have asked how long the period between a flowering bud (if that’s the right terminology) first opening and the flowering part falling off exposing the tiny fruit.
My gourds are strange. The flowers on clear days open about a hour before official sunset. If it is cloudy, they may be open then, I think. I’m going to start paying more attention. They are easy to see.
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Most self fertile varieties bloom over a long period of time.
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Muscadine flowers expand from a tiny bud into a round nub with a cap over the flower. When ready, the cap pops off and the stigmas (male flower parts) either spring up (self fertile or male) or lay sideways (female). Look at the flowers of Carlos and Scuppernong and you will easily be able to tell the difference.
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What I’m concerned about is missing this event. If this expanding, popping off, springing up or laying sideways happens in a few hours I may miss the entire event.
That is a good description of the process though.
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It doesn’t happen that fast. If in doubt post a couple of picture of the bloom. Sometimes a self fertile will have a few late blooms that can be used to identify with.
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Maybe you all can understand what I’m asking if I ask thru pictures. In the top picture is a bud with a flag tied to the stem. I’m not expecting it to flower tomorrow but on Friday (day after tomorrow) about 6:20 P.M. I expect it to. Then it will look like the flower in the second picture. At that time, it will be receptive to male pollen. Then I’m thinking that the flower will close the next morning. The length of time that female flower is receptive to the male pollen is what I don’t know. That is what I’m asking. The question is not complicated.
Now of course I’m not a biologist either.
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Gourds, cucumbers, and squash etc have female flowers that are open for one day as you already know. I can’t tell you how long a muscadine flower is receptive but I’m almost certain it will be several days.
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3 days. Quit making it complicated. It isn’t. Muscadines bloom a different way to curcurbits. Muscadines pop the cap off the flower, stamens then pop up vertical if self-fertile, 3 days later the flower dries up and a couple of days after that the fruit starts to expand. More important, each cluster of flowers will have buds in all stages of development meaning one single cluster may have expanding fruit, just popped caps, fertile flowers, and flowers drying up. When looking at the entire vine, you may even see some clusters of grapes 1/2 inch diameter while other clusters are just opening flowers. You have about 2 months to look at flowers and figure out male or female.
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Thanks
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Thank you.
If my thinking is correct, the muscadines vines start to green up here in the middle of April. I’m not at all sure as to the peak of the 3-day activity is though. We are in the same 7b zone so the peak should be very similar. I know that it may be different for the different varieties but do you off hand know about when that peak is?
Just reading an article I read that taste of the Carlos variety is very similar to the Scuppernong. I did not know that having thought that there would be a distinct difference. Also read the following as is-
When it comes to wine production, there’s no better Muscadine grape variety than the Carlos. Heavy in numbers and high in quality, more than 90 percent of all the muscadine grapes produced in North Carolina are Carlos Muscadine.
Wow, I better hope that it’s a Carlos if I am thinking of wine.
I was wrong about the 3 different buds on the gourd vines. They each appear to be blooming as I type this - each about a hour before official sunset. The flower that bloomed last night has dried up. My thought is that the blooms will stay fully open until about an hour after sunrise. Will have to get up early in the morning to take a look. I read somewhere that a particular insect pollinates the flowers at night. Just don’t remember the name. The same would be true for other vines in the Cucurbitaceae family.
Thanks again for the info!
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Starting to get some ripe Paulk here. Taste is so so. Not as good as Lane or Black Beauty. First season with fruit so not passing judgement yet.
What I have noticed is that about 1/3rd of my Paulks are either seedless or have 1 seed… and in another 1/3rd the seeds are soft-ish and not as bitter as other varieties.
Maybe just some randomness with the early ripening grapes but interesting.
It set a ton of fruit even though it’s in a food forest kind of situation where it is competing with 2 So Jujube and a Hosui pear.
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Interesting, I’m in Arlington, VA and my Paulk seems to be at least a week away from being ripe. They seem to color early but are taking their time to finish up and get fully ripe.
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Even if the taste ends up slightly behind my other varieties… i’ll probably still replace one with another Paulk. It’s just so much more productive and vigorous than Lane. It also has the best bite and mouth feel.
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I agree with folks who love their Paulk vines. I don’t fertilize and water like I should, but even without that it is productive and pretty much problem-free. It was tiny when I got it in 2021 and it took a whole season to just get it to the top of the wire (which is 7 feet high in my case), but in its third year is holding a nice crop and I’m sure will have a ton more next year as it matures. Now I just need to get a real trellis in place to hold it up as it grows and fruits more.
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Paulk is what many growers are looking for in a big black muscadine.
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Between the raccoons and I the Cowart muscadines have mostly gone. The electric fence did not stop them. Hopefully the scuppernongs will make a batch or two of jelly. The raccoons don’t seem to like scuppernong. Maybe I need to plant more scuppernong. I wonder if they like Carlos.
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If certain birds will eat and love grape jelly, does it mean that those same birds will eat and love muscadine jelly? That would be expensive jelly if it was Oh My!
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Anyone growing Nesbitt and Paulk? How does their taste compare?
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