Planting Muscadines?

[DoublePslayer]

Anybody done it before. I'm wanting to establish a couple vines at the house. We picked a bunch for jelly this weekend, and I saved a couple dozen for seed.

[landscaper]

I don't know enough about it to give you a good answer, but I'm pretty sure muscadines are dioecious . You'll have to have a male and a female plant for them to produce. Guess you have to peek under their little leaves to tell which is which.

[donia]

per msucares.com:
Check with your nurserymen if you are purchasing one muscadine plant to make sure it is a variety that will set fruit. Some muscadine varieties have only female flowers and would require another variety as a male pollinator for fruit set. These muscadine varieties require a pollinator: Scuppernong, Summit, Fry and Jumbo. These muscadine varieties are self-pollinating and will pollinate the varieties listed above: Carlos, Magnolia, Roanoke, Doreen and Regale.

http://msucares.com/lawn/garden/coast/02/020817.html

Establishment and Production
of Muscadine Grapes
http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2290.pdf

[Wingman]

I've been wanting to plant some for a while now.

[donia]

^^^call who i told you about in town. i mentioned it to his wife the other day (she was writing a history of isola book with mom) and she said absolutely, especially since he's had trouble getting around. and a big tree fell across half of it, so may try to get a rooting/cutting this fall...doesn't sound like he's going to try to revitalize it. it seems like he has 2 varieties.

[MudHog]

Here is a place to look at for vines and information. As mentioned, some are female only. Downside, is the female only varieties tend to produce better quality fruit. I recently pulled up my old clothes line and will turn that into a Muscadine trellis. Below is a response I received from a friend of mine a while back when I was looking at some varieties.

Lane
I am growing Nobel, Pam, Summit, Cowart, and Ison

Summit is my favorite but it is a female. It has bronze thin skin and very sweet

Pam is another female that has green/golden skin and it very good. The first two years the fruit was not great but after that it turned out to be my second favorite

Cowart is a male with large fruit but not as good as the females. It has one of the largest fruit out of all the males and can be fresh eaten or wine making

Ison is a male that makes small fruit , kind of on the acidy but makes good wine

Nobel is a male with small fruit that are very good tasting

I have also eaten Fry, Black Fry ,Darlene and black beauty all females , large fruit and very good.

Go to the Ison link below and you will get a better description with pictures. All muscadines are similar in taste but the sweeter varieties are so much better tasting. The link below gives you the sugar content for each verity.

http://store.isons.com/muscadine-vines? ... MgodnyEAsQ

Edit: You would be better off buying some plants instead of starting from seed. From seed, your talking a few years for maturity and good fruit production. Most plants are in the two year range and you still have to wait a year or two for good production. Also, if you go do the seed route, I suggest winter sowing to get good germination. If you don't winter sow, you will need to stratify the seeds for them to germinate. If the fruit you picked were from a wild plant, you don't know what you have. At least with buying a plant/s, you'd know the varieties.

[hillhunter]

1, plant certified rootstock, 2, after each years growth, prune them back way more than you think you should to encourage branching and to establish your main vine and to strengthen your mainstem before much fruit is set. Also, fertilize well with P and K, but not too heavy with the N. I have right at an acre of them, and this is the third year. They produced basically none the first year, a fair amount the second and I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with all of them this year. If any of you want to come pick some for a small fee let me know.

[Wingman]

^^^call who i told you about in town. i mentioned it to his wife the other day (she was writing a history of isola book with mom) and she said absolutely, especially since he's had trouble getting around. and a big tree fell across half of it, so may try to get a rooting/cutting this fall...doesn't sound like he's going to try to revitalize it. it seems like he has 2 varieties.

Was that Mr. JG?

[donia]

yep

[DoublePslayer]

Thanks for all the tips. I'm not really worried about getting a certain type of plant. Just as long as they produce. I ate enough of the ones we pulled to about make me sick, so they taste fine to us. Just wanting to know if I can put them in a planter now, or wait until later in the fall. I planted some persimmons the year before last about this time, and I have about 2 dozen saplings now. I'm thinking about going the same route with this.

[*7*]

You can take cutting from the vine that you picked from and plant the cuttings. There's different methods so google it. I've done it or years. It's cheaper than buying plants and you can take a lot of cuttings from the same parent vine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFlsrU15uoc