Yeah, table grapes with a meal is nice. I certainly miss the Reliance and Jupiter grapes. Pierces’ disease finally forced me into muscadines about 8-9 years ago.
Just curious, which grape varieties are you having trouble with black rot? I remember having some of it but it was not bad.
Actually in looking back the advantage with muscadines of not having to spray for diseases and insects, lack of bird problems and suitability for jelly canning would have been reason enough for me switching from bunch grapes.
With that said I have my doubts that there will ever be a such as a thing as “table muscadines”.
Young muscadine vines often show cold susceptibility which disappears as they grow older. My Oh My vine had 4 main runners last fall. All 4 of them died back to about 8 inches above the ground. They are growing back.
Muscadine is far less cold hardy than most other grape species.
On the other hand I have never had a muscadine vine die while I have had a number of bunch grape vines to die. I think a large part of that is disease such as mildew, Pierce’s and such weakens the bunch grape vines and then cold winter of sub 0 temperatures kills the vine. Muscadine vines generally don’t have such disease issues.
I’m not sure of this, but my perception is that Mediterranean/California varieties (Vitis vinifera) such as Thompson Seedless, Summer Royal and a large number of the wine grapes are not at all cold hardy as compared to muscadine vines. I did plant a Thompson Seedless vine here and the first winter killed it. I’ve had other such vines to die. At least that is my experience here. So I guess it all depends on what varieties and locations that we are talking about. I’m sure that diseases factor into this.
Willis is notorious for sending table grape varieties that die. I would not buy muscadine vines from them either.
I think your statement should read as “Muscadine is far less cold hardy than most other American grape species”.
Hmm. I can’t tell the difference between a self-fertile (Cowart) and a female (scuppernong) bloom (if I didn’t already know what vines they came off). Can you?
Can’t identify whether or not my wild muscadines are male or female. I seen some of these blooms on them but smaller. Probably possum grapes.
In the picture you posted, both clusters are of self fertile flowers, which means neither could have come from the true scuppernong variety. Perhaps what you have was misidentified when you received it. That’s very common unfortunately.
Anthers are the key to visually identifying self-fertile vs female. Female flowers have curved anthers and don’t produce pollen from the nubs.
Tennessean, be careful of wild vines. I did not even know we have Vitis Riparia in this region until identifying a vine in my yard. Wild riparia vines look almost identical to muscadine as young plants.
It will be interesting if your vines ever flower. I’ve had vines growing for about 10 years now, 3 years ago I relocated them to my best all day sun exposure. Still no flowers last year and now I watch to see if I get any this year? I have one of Isons and a Cowart which is supposed to be more likely to produce here. They both are fully leafed out and very healthy to look at, but so far only nice looking landscape plants
Dennis
Kent, Wa
I moved both muscadines to large pots in a much sunnier location along a fence this (2025) early spring, before the vines started growing.
I accidently broke one and I don’t think it is coming back… though the vine piece shoved into the dirt is green…
The non- broken one has leafed out and is growing.
The berries in this link of the V. Riparia vine look like the berries that wild vines around my house produce. Described as river-bank grapes or frost grapes in the link. Of course not all V. Riparia vines are the same. Probably the whole family of vines are the same as what I call possum grapes. Does your wild vines have forked tendrils or single tendrils?
I’ve noticed that on my transplanted wild vines that the tendrils are reddest in color. On my supposedly scuppernong and Carlos vines the tendrils are pure green. Yet on the Cowart vine the tendrils are reddest but not quite as reddest as the tendrils on the wild vines. All are non-forked except that on my Concord vine the tendrils are forked.
Red color of tendrils is correlated with anthocyanin production. In other words, black grapes are black because of high levels of anthocyanin. Tendril color is a side effect of fruit color. Bronze grapes don’t produce anthocyanin therefore the tendrils are green.
The anther is the petal like structure on the end of the filament. Can you really even see the anther clearly enough to tell if it is curved or not?
I’ve got a picture of a Carlos bloom on my phone that I am having trouble figuring how to upload.
The Garden center that I bought the nearly 10’ vine 3 years or so ago had labeled at the top as “scuppernong” while at the bottom of the vine a tag supposedly from a nursery had labeled it as being “Carlos”.
I’ve read that some folks consider any bronze colored muscadine as being scuppernong. I’m guessing that is the case here. The lady at the cash register when I bought it said that if the tag at the bottom said Carlos then that is what it is.
Sure has a long filament in the picture. The supposedly scuppernong and the supposedly Carlos tasted the same to me but the supposedly Carlos grape looked bigger.
This is only true for muscadines. In bunch grapes, there is no correlation between anthocyanins in the tendrils, petioles etc. and fruit color. You can usually tell what the fruit color will be in muscadine seedlings, but with bunch grapes, you have to wait until they fruit.
Scuppernong is a named variety of muscadine grape. It was discovered as a native vine back in the 1500’s and has been used for breeding for the last 100 or so years. In breeding, it conveys very good flavor, large fruit size, and several other useful traits. It is not productive enough for commercial use. To call “Carlos” a “Scuppernong” is incorrect.
I’ve spent time over the last 50 years living and working in many different areas of the Southeastern U.S. The wild muscadines in southeastern North Carolina are uniquely flavored and all are similar to Scuppernong. The only other area where I’ve found wild muscadines to have a unique flavor is in Northwest Alabama and Northeast Mississippi. These are the best jelly making wild muscadines I’ve tasted.
Bronze muscadines are rare. In my lifetime, I’ve seen exactly 1 vine growing wild which was bronze. All others have been black. The one bronze I found was growing on the side of a mountain a few miles north of Springville Alabama. It was not good enough dig up and bring home. The only thing unique about it was that it was wild and it was bronze.
I’ve got 4 muscadine vines (Paulk, Supreme, Hall, Black Beauty) planted and this is year 2+ so I’ve got some observations:
They are constantly trying to kill themselves. The tendrils from the side shoots continuously find a way to grab and wrap around the main vine. I’ve been gently removing them every few weeks. Is this what everyone else does typically?
The main variety I really want to sample (Black Beauty) is not growing well. I count maybe 4 side shoots on 20 feet of growth. I bought the Ison variety as a replacement because I like slip skin and I hear it is very prolific. I will set a pair of pruners next to the BB T post to see how it responds to death threats.
My thought is that most folks that would buy the true variety of scuppernong are like myself in buying it as a novelty. Maybe the stores know this so they label any bronze variety as “scuppernong” in order to sell it. Who knows?
