@Fusion_power.. not sure I understand what you mean by narrow branch angles.
Below is what happened to my Oh My last winter…. I think it happened in December.
I don’t check my trellised vines all that often during the winter months.. but the previous fall all was well.. and early January I found it looking like this. At that point it was obvious the split had happened some time back.. the split was not fresh.
That is what it looked like last fall… before the split.
I have never had a split like this with my old concord grape (20 years) and it is on an much more flimsy trellis.
@Auburn.. looks like your recommendation would be to add a tpost 16” from each side where the vine forks… just to stabilize that crown area well. I can do that.
What muscadines have a distinct concord flavor in your experience?
Having never had muscadines, I bought some “black” muscadine grapes at the store this week, and they tasted nothing like concord. Nor did they taste particularly good. The “bronze” muscadines though, tasted almost exactly like concord grapes, and were pretty delicious. Which confuses me, because everything I read online said it would be the opposite.
Which has me doubting which varieties I should purchase, if concord-like juice and jelly are the desired goal. Can you point me in the right direction?
If you want Concord flavor, grow concord. IME, no muscadine has the dark earthy sweet tart flavor of Concord.
Finding varieties adapted to your climate is another concern. Carlos is a wine variety that can be eaten or juiced. The new UARK releases - Mighty Fine and Altus - should be on your radar.
Did Altus and Mighty Fine make it through the winter?
I planted one of each this spring, unsure if I will lay them down and cover with mulch this winter or just test their hardiness at 7a. The only way other muscadines (Carlos, Nobel, Eudora, sweet Mix, Sugargate, +others) make it without at least die back of top growth is to cover them
The only thing Concord/labrusca type grapes and muscadine grapes have in common is they are both aromatic, and in both cases, some people love the flavors they produce and some people hate the flavors. The aroma compounds they produce are different though.
I’d love to, but from what I’ve read, Concord isn’t likely to be consistently productive in TN without fungicides, due to black rot, and mildews. Is that not the case?
I’ve had Concords for 35 years with minimal black rot and no mildews and that is without spraying some years.. Most years very productive. I’m near Memphis.
About 4 years ago I had my remaining Concord vine to die to the ground in the winter but it re-sprouted from the roots. May have been from Pierce’s Disease. I suspect that Concord has some resistance to PD but not total. Vine isn’t as vigorous as it once was.
Concord grapes on an arbor need picking. Has not been sprayed this year.
Thank you for speaking up. An example of Concords being successfully grown here is encouraging. Maybe I can pull it off…
Another southern grower on Youtube, growing a concord type, Sunbelt, said his vine also died after 6 years of good productivity. So hypothetically, I would just need to plant new vines every three years or there abouts, so new vines are constantly coming into production as older ones die, or lose vigor.
They would not be expected die that often. What may have happened to the vine that I had that died to the ground is that after a huge crop there was not enough of nutrients stored in the roots to prepare for the winter (as @Fusion_power has related can happen to the muscadines after a huge crop).
One difference that I have seen between Concords and muscadines is that often with a huge crop of Concords there would be a few grapes at the end of the season that would never fully ripen, It may have been as few as just a half dozen or so bunches but they would be there. I have never seen that with muscadines. It aways seemed to help to thin the Concords even if it meant to only cutting off the end of some bunches. I’ve never thinned muscadines other than spur pruning.
It takes a lot of energy for a vine to ripen the grapes.
You would have to be bored to read all of this post.
It’s early spring before the buds start to swell on your muscadine vines. You purchased a small vine that you’re going to plant and you want to test the fruit of this new variety as soon as possible. A few years ago I paid a high price for the seedless Oh My. It arrived in a very small container and was about 8” high. I was then and still am a big fan of the Ison method of getting a vine up and down the wire as soon as possible. The best I could do was to get it about half way down both sides of my 20’ trellis. Long term the Oh My has done well and it’s a vigorous growing variety. My opinion is that it helps to have a little bigger plant with a larger root base to start with. Since then I have planted several others and they have for the most part grown to the end of the wire the first year. This year my Oh Yes was taller and had a little better root system. It started out a little slow but is growing well now. The left side is 36” down the wire and the right side is 26”. I measure a couple times in the morning to get a current daily gain. One side gained 2” and the other side 1” so I’m going to say the daily gain is about 1.5” a day. I set up the trellis for 16’. I’m estimating that one side will get to the end on August the 2th and the other on August 9th. Will all this go as planned? Most like no but it’s interesting. Old engineering minds like data/numbers. I don’t much worry about aphids anymore other than when they load up on the tips of the new vines. I have noticed that after a few days the tips die back and have to start over growing which can cause about 6-8 days slowdown getting the vine down the wire. I’m out early almost every morning so I check the tips. As of now the vines are doing well. As with almost everything there are many ways to do things so it’s okay to add your procedures.
Just to add to your anticipation, the best flavored muscadines I’ve eaten were wild vines growing north and west from Birmingham Alabama. In other words, your wild vines are likely to make exceptionally good wild muscadine jelly. Also, I’ve seen some wild muscadines in this general region that were the size of a quarter.
Oh My has a few Dines that are turning. The vines have a heavy load and are a little bigger than years prior. Guessing that most will be 1-1.25" in diameter.
The bronze muscadine juice sure is tart. I know that that the bronze grape are said to be sweet-tart but I think they are significantly more tart than they are sweet. Not only is the juice tart but it also unappetizing in that it looks like dirty water. Sort of taste like dirty water too. I’ve got some quart jars full of scuppernong/Carlos juice left over that I was saving in case that if I ran out of jelly I could cook it into jelly. But I did not run out of jelly so now I’m trying to like the tart juice. So I’m now thinking of using last years juice for some of this years jelly. It beats me that such a terrible tasting juice can be cooked into a great tasting jelly. Well I do put some red/hot candy into the jelly.
I wonder if the OhMy muscadines have the same sweet-tart taste?
It is a plus for the color of the Concord juice/jelly to be the pretty dark blue. The Cowart juice is fairly appetizing in that it is more of a rose color.
You may have picked Carlos too early: I pick them, when they have a bronze hue, are slightly soft, and start getting really fragrant. If I wait too long, the juice lacks acid and I had to add tartaric acid for one batch.
Carlos and Scuppernong both have relatively low sugar at around 16%. You started with low sweetness when you picked them. How did you process them for juice? If you used a heating/boiling process, the tannins and flavonoids would be concentrated and the result would be a very tart juice. It is a method I have used and still use when making jelly. The only way to get sweet muscadine juice is to cold press the pulp… and even then care has to be taken not to press too much.
