Will hybrid grapes pollinate a female muscadine?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I will be cutting down my all my apple trees except my summer apple because they are just too difficult for me, can’t stop them from rotting. This will give me room for two grape vines. I am looking at Darlene muscadine and would like to know if hybrids like Southern Home or maybe Razzmatazz would pollinate it?

#2

I don’t know for sure but I think both the Southern Home and Razz (both self pollinating/perfect flowers) will pollinate other male and female muscadines. Just my opinion but from what I have read about Southern Home it was first a cross between muscadine and grape and then crossed back with another muscadine. Most likely it matches a muscadines pollen more than a grape. I have two Southern home grapes but I added another perfect flowering muscadine named Lane just to make sure. Black Beauty is a recent purchase which is a female and in my opinion one of the best tasting. Wish I could help more but that is all I know. Bill

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#3

How does Southern Home compare to a good muscadine or should I just add two true muscadines and not have to worry?

#4

The Southern Home compared to most others has a smaller fruit but it will get plenty sweet if left on the vine. It just taste like a muskadine to me. I planted it in 2015 and picked about a quart this year. I plan to keep one vine of it but after getting to sample several other of Dr Powell’s collection the two best are Black Beauty and Supreme with Lane being a close third. Both of these get to about 1.25" and they are very sweet and the peeling is thinner and fairly easy to eat. The one drawback of Supreme is that it’s hardiness is about Birmingham southward so I don’t plan to plant it at least not now. Nether of these two are self pollinating/perfect flowering so I added a relatively new variety Lane which does produce perfect flowers. Lane has a medium-Large size fruit that is very similar in taste to Black Beauty. If I was starting over Black Beauty and Lane would be my choices if I was only planting two. Hope this helps, Bill

#5

It does, thanks.

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#6

I contacted Jeff Bloodworth, the breeder, about pollination and this was his response.

I have used Razzmatazz pollen on female muscadines and got fruit set, so it should work. Not sure about relative amount of fruit set compared to a pure muscadine pollinator.

I asked about pruning and he said treat it like a muscadine.

#7

What kind of muscadine is pure muscadine pollinator? Can all muscadine be pollinated?

#8

Pure muscadine would be all muscadines for sale except Razzmatazz and Southern Home. These two grapes are a cross between muscadine and grape.

All muscadine plants that are for sale are female or self-fertile. Self-fertile varieties can pollinate themselves and other muscadines. A female variety is sterile needs a self-fertile variety for pollination to produce fruit.

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