Yes they do. However, in all grapes, not just muscadines, the flower cluster primordia is formed in the dormant bud the season before that new shoot pushes. Whether or not that new shoot will have a flower cluster or just be a bare shoot is determined the season before. If a dissection is done on dormant buds under a microscope, in grape, you can actually see if flower clusters are there or not.
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I’m thinking that would take a trained eye and not just a layperson as myself. Coud that person also be able to know whether the vine was female or male as in the case of a muscadine vine? Seems to me that the person would if knowing what to look for.
Flower primordia are not differentiated. If dissected, I would expect the flower to be relatively easy to find but would not be able to tell if it was male or female.
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As fusionpower said, you can tell if flowers are there or not by bud dissection, but you can’t tell the gender of the flowers visually prior to bloom. The only way to sex vines prior to bloom is by genetic testing for sex linked markers. This is widely done in many professional grape breeding programs, but the cost is prohibitive for just doing a few vines. It’s more practical for breeders who are testing thousands of seedlings for a number of different marker linked traits at the same time.
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Oh My update/comments
I have had Oh My planted for a few years now and my opinions of it are.
-It has a good taste but the flavor is not as complex as some of my other varieties. I like the taste. I give most of the fruit to my neighbors and they prefer them because they are seedless. Most people just don’t want to deal with the seeds.
-They appear to be heavy producers but I don’t typically prune for max production.
-The fruit size varies with 1” being where most grow to
-The vines at my location are vigorous and I haven’t had any disease issues as of now.
- My opinion is that they will do well with 15-20’ spacing.
-I’m looking forward to when a dark colored seedless variety is developed.
I have noticed that others are starting to plant Oh My and I think it would be good to get others’ opinions about the vine/fruit for your area. We all have different tastes and preferences.
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When did you prune your vines this year?
I’m wondering if I pruned my mature vines enough… I looked on Isons for pruning advice. They said to prune to one or two buds without saying what constitutes a bud. Probably leaving too many.
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I pruned in Feb. Before any new growth.
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A wild muscadine vine that I transplanted to an arbor from nursery row. Nursery row was getting crowded
A couple of questions that I have been wondering about.
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Do wild female vines grow the same as same as wild male vines as to vigor and timing of waking up in the spring? Its odd that some of my wild vines are leafing out while others are not nearly as much. Aoso some are not growing as much as others.
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Is it possible to graft a self-fertile domesticated vine to a wild male vine?
Grafting muscadines is possible but not practical. Growing on their own roots is almost always better in the long run.
Wild vines are highly variable with no particular difference between male and female. In other words, some females will grow rapidly and some males will grow rapidly while others of each sex will grow slowly.
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Out of 10 wild muscadine vines. Please make selection:
- At least 1 will be female
- At least 1 will be self-fertile
- All will be male
- tennessean will lose his patience
0
voters
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Check out this almost 1" thick ground layer I recovered from an old productive muscadine vine.
I cut it off the base of the original vine in mi-February, and it has finally popped out some new growth at the nodes.
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Congratulations. Looks like you have another vine to plant.
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Is Oh My the best tasting (or really only?) seedless muscadines available? If/when I lose the battle with black rot on my grapes, I think this may be my best bet
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Oh My is the only seedless muscadines that I have so I can’t compare it with the seedless Razz. I like it’s taste but I also like the flavor of most seeded varieties.
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@tennessean … why not try transplanting a wild fruiting female.
They can be cut back pretty hard when dormant and will send out plenty of growth the next spring.
TNHunter
That is a good question.
Maybe because I could not find a producing female vine in the woods a couple of years or so ago when I looked for it in August/September. I had spotted a producing vine there 10 years (more or less) previously. Anyhow the following picture is only vine that I could find at the time. Wasn’t sure about it since I failed to see any muscadine under it… Weird looking vine with all the runners off of the nodes. Sorry for the low quality picture…
I had seen a video on Youtube where this fellow goes into the woods collecting muscadine sprouts for transplanting. So i decided to try it that way. Besides I hate disturbing the woods during August/September. Nice deer hunting spot.
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Mine just died here in 8b so make sure you protect them well for the first few years. Mine was 2 years old from Gurneys. It survived in Colorado when i had it in my garage over the winter. I thought would survive when it got 11 degrees here in Washington for an hour about 2 months ago but i guess it didn’t. No growth yet while everyone else is waking up.
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Gurney’s claims it is hardy to zone 7, so I’m surprised it couldn’t take the cold! If I get it, I’ll be sure to pile on the mulch for the first few winters. Thank you for the info!
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May be talking about mature plants. The ones that send are tiiiiiinnnnnyyy. The caliper i got was __ big at the biggest areas when i received them
Was it in a container? Plants in containers are much more susceptible to cold than in-ground plants. How big was the container? Was in contact with the ground or elevated?