Black Beauty is a vigorous grower that should easily compete with other vigorous growers like Ison. However, I prefer Ison over Black Beauty because it is more consistently productive.
1 Like
Thanks for the info. I guess I got a dud. Every other vine looks good. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and if all else fails, I did put the Isons in the ground in a less desirable location.
I know this may be a dumb question, but can any muscadine grapes handle -10 F with little to no dieback?
Short answer is no. Once you get down to those temps in muscadine, odds are you will have significant die back. Muscadine are predominantly found below the mason Dixon line for a reason.
Thanks for the answer. I guess I’ll just stick to regular grapes.
I’ll give a slightly different answer that some muscadines originate in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky. They have better cold tolerance than any of the currently available commercial varieties. I’m not aware of any selection effort directed toward extending the range of muscadines further north than current.
I have grown muscadines for about 55 years now starting with plants I set out when I was 10 years old. In those years, I’ve seen muscadines killed by low temps a few times. The varieties that died all did so at temps near 0 degrees F. Interesting trivia, I’ve never seen Big Red with freeze damage but I have seen it on several of the varieties developed by B.O. Fry. Usually, freeze damage is associated with a vine that had a very heavy crop the previous year and did not have enough time to accumulate reserves before winter.
1 Like
Here is a report from the University of Arkansas about cold hardiness in muscadines in Clarksville. A few seem to be very hardy.
"cultivars ‘Carlos’ and ‘Noble’ and the fresh-market breeding selection AM-70 surviving -26 °C
with little to no damage and producing full crops in the 2021 season. "
2 Likes
A trio of years years ago I had a Concord vine to die to its roots over a winter while a couple of muscadine vines showed no die back. A lot of the survivability of a vine has to do with the health of the vine. The Concord may have had some Pierces Disease pressure although it did have a heavy crop the preceding year. The vine did not look to have much vigor that year.
A self-fertile vine can produce such a heavy crop that leaves it without the resources to survive the really cold nights. I know that my muscadine vines have done okay with -3 F temps a couple of years with the pruning that was done. Can’t help wondering about the amount of pruning to the spurs after being thru many years though.
I have read that the Carlos vine can be affected by Pierces. Have not seen that yet in my Carlos.
1 Like
Carlos is very cold tolerant.
1 Like
For those interested in muscadines, I thought this was a nice set of recent presentations.
2 Likes
So are my dreams of a Triumph and Ruby Crisp in SE PA dashed in the Winter wind? 
Usually, when I’m interested in a few varieties of a fruit it turns out to be the least practical ones for my location. It’s a talent.
1 Like
Many muscadines are hardy to 7a , I’m unsure of those two specifically Help me pick two muscadines varieties for 6B
1 Like
Sometimes it seems to me that often it is that northern growers want to plant muscadines and southern growers want to plant only bunch grapes that do well in the north.
3 Likes
Gurneys released a seedless black muscadine called Oh Yes.
2 Likes
It looks interesting. I didn’t see any information about the fruit size.
That’s probably by design. The fruit size looks fairly small when compared to the muscadine leaves next to the berries or the hand holding the cluster in the short video. It looks to be larger than razzmatazz but about the same size or smaller than oh my.
3 Likes
He says the big ‘Oh My’ grapes are about the size of ‘Carlos’ and a little larger than Razzamatazz. I haven’t seen anything about the black one yet.
I always assumed that the newer varieties have the same traditional flavor as the wild muscadines and older varieties that we are so accustomed to. The fact that some are seedless does not does not change that. Or does it?
The fact that it’s seedless would have no impact on aroma one way or the other as you surmised. However, how intense the aroma in a new variety is depends on what the breeder selected for. There is a range. Some of the newer selections like ruby crisp are known to have lower aroma than some of the older cultivars, but the breeder selected for a more neutral flavor, so that’s why.
1 Like
If bunchgrapes can have muscat flavor why can’t muscadines have muscat flavor? Of course most folks would not recognize the muscat flavor even if it bite them myself included. But they do taste good. I recently ate some Muscat Beauty grapes. Yummy imported vitis vinifera grapes.
1 Like