Muscadines 2023

Would it be accurate to state that ALL bronze varieties have Scuppernong in their ancestry? The reason that I ask is because I have run across a muscadine winery site that seems to refer to any bronze variety as Scuppernong. It would not be totally inaccurate. This site describes itself as the country’s oldest muscadine winery so they must know something about muscadines.

http://postwinery.com/

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To the best of my knowledge, all bronze muscadines are descendants of the Scuppernong variety. My knowledge in this case is pretty extensive.

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I saw Darlene for sale at Walmart.

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Price?

Before you buy, keep in mind that Darlene is a lousy producer. Summit is a far better choice.

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Like $12-13 potted.

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Darlene has a reputation of being a very good tasting muscadine but it is also known to be a low producer. If you’re only going to have only a few vines I would suggest going with a self fertile such as Hall. Most self fertile varieties will produce more fruit than the females.

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I would check your local Walmart as I have noticed that they all carry different varieties. They have been carrying named varieties of muscadine for a few years now. Lowes has also started carrying named varieties.

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My guess is that the vine was on clearance. At this time of year Walmart is closing down much of its fruit and garden stuff. I went by a Walmart supercenter store in Memphis last week, and it had already shut down its seed section and they did not have any fruit trees that I could see. Anyway, I have this habit of aways looking at fruit stuff even when I’m not intending on buying. Several years ago, I bought a potted Winesap tree in June at a local Walmart for the $12-13 when I was “just looking”. Now it’s one of my better producing apple trees.

I much more like the price of the muscadines vines in my woods. It almost looked like muscadine city there, mostly just little things in the leaves. I flagged maybe a dozen or so vines. All they cost me to scout them was skeeter bites, a few chiggers, and the threat of poison ivy rash. On second thought maybe Walmart is a better deal. :grinning:

Anyway, I’m considering about digging up a half dozen or so vines to transplant in a nursery row in my garden and then watching them. Maybe with super luck one will be a perfect flower. More likely though it will be more like my cousin who planted a muscadine vine in aged cow manure at a old dairy barn site. Grew the heathiest muscadine vine ever. Never got the first muscadine grape. :slightly_smiling_face:

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If you’re going to plant a wild vine, mark a vine with fruit on it for later transplanting. In my area the wild vines are in the process of setting fruit. A high percent of wild vines are male and they provide pollen for the female but they will not have fruit. If you don’t locate the female with fruit first you could end up planting like 5 male vines and none will fruit. You can do what you’re saying if you are careful picking the female vine. I have one vine from the wild and I air layered it after it had fruit on it. Good luck.

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I forgot to mention that you would almost never find a perfect flower in the wild.

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Several years ago, in those woods I spotted a producing muscadine vine. Don’t know the probability that it’s still there.

I did a google search on “what percentage of wild muscadines in the woods are male?”. The results were minimal, but one site had “In the wild muscadine grapes are from 52-72% male plants.”. Does that sound about right to you?

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From my recent observation the male ratio is more like 60-70%. Just my guess.

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I should also mention that using all wild females you will need to add one male or a self fertile to pollinate them if you don’t have nearby wild males.

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There was a study to see how much influence having a pollinator has on production for female muscadine plants. Having a self-fertile within 15 feet gave normal crop, 30 feet gave slightly reduced crop, and 50 feet gave less than 20% of a crop. I have self-fertile plants every other muscadine. Why do I plant females? Because I can’t get the flavor and performance of Supreme, Big Red, and Summit from any of the current generation of self-fertile muscadines.

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I’ve got wild muscadines growing all over me. East, west, north and south. Last time I checked there is no more directions than that. Pollination is the LEAST of my concerns.

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Wild muscadine from about 20 steps from Scuppernong vine. There is more than just a few wild vines. Scuppernong is female. There are no pollination problems here.

IMG_13101

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If you have wondered about the vigor of Oh My, my experience over a few years is that it grows as fast as most of my other varieties. The exception is its first year, it is a small plant/root system. As of now my experience is that it is also a heavy producer.

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Yesterday a middle-aged fellow and a lady (his wife?) drove into my driveway. The fellow stated that they lived nearby and had seen my grapevines from the road. I replied that they were muscadines. Then the fellow stated that he had never heard of muscadines (!), but he had a couple of grapevines that were given to him by a friend. I asked him what variety of grapes they were. He said that he did not know.

I guess that I should not have been surprised as most folks have a very casual viewpoint of grapes. Muscadines are very native to this area though. One of my earliest memories is of eating muscadines from a vine that was about 100 yards behind the house.

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Do you expect to ever see the Oh My seedless muscadine grapes in the grocery or farmers markets sold alongside the bunchgrapes?

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