Recent experimental work with muscadines:
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Cultural practices are more effective than fruit thinning. Muscadine varieties have been selected for propensity to set an excessively high fruit load. Supporting the load is a matter of fertilizing and using a training method that maximizes sunlight exposure. I use a 2 wire trellis system along with plenty of chicken manure and fertilizer. Correct pruning is also required. For heavy producers, I prune all spurs to a single bud and as the vine ages, remove spurs until they are about a foot apart on the cane.
- Maximize sun exposure by using an appropriate training system
- Fertilize heavily, more than commonly recommended
- Prune heavier than for normal varieties.
Supreme and Ison are noted for over-producing. After harvesting the crop, I spread fertilizer at about 5 pounds per plant to prevent winter death and ensure a heavy crop the next year.
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I can see how thinning muscadines after they over-set would help get larger fruit but it seems to me to be a lot of tedious work. My current method is to thin spurs and reduce spur size during dormancy which essentially can reduce the over cropping if done correctly. For the last two years I have been adding a couple of hands full of 13-13-13 fertilizer immediately after harvest which appears to help the vines go through the winter and promotes rapid springtime growth. As the vines get older I will add more after harvest fertilizer.
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Our large farm neighbor has a couple of large trellis’s their 94 y.o.father maintains. Some type of really large golden russeted grape. Very heavy bearing. About the main thing he does is water it in drought and fertilize it. Some years he makes his son extend the trellis to train new growth to. We’ve picked it many times and it hardly makes a dent in the grapes. Some form from Ison’s may years ago.
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