Favorite Muscadine Varieties?

[garymc]

I'm asking muscadine growers to chime in with their different varieties and what they think of them.
I noticed a post by a member mentioning a number of varieties of muscadines he's growing. I think I have 13 varieties of muscadines. Hard to say exactly because some of them were mis-labeled at the nursery. One was a "Nesbit" which bears bronze grapes (Nesbits are purple.) Another was a jumbo which bears some of the smallest muscadines I have. Anyhow, my varieties are:
Ison - purple, nby = not bearing yet
Darlene- bronze-pink, I think- nby
Big Red- red, nby
Supreme-purple, nby
Nesbit?- bronze, low production, mid season, medium size, good taste
jumbo?- purple, heavy crop, late, small-medium, not very good tasting
triumph- bronze, productive, early, good taste, medium size
Tara - favorite bronze, productive, early, good taste, med-large
Scarlett- very low production, mid season, large pink-red grapes
Cowart- purple, productive, med-small, mid-late, not very good taste
majesty- nby
delicious- nby
Eudora-nby
scuppernong - claimed to be a descendant of the old vine on Roanoke- nby

In a few weeks I may have opinions on the taste of some of the nby's if I get enough grapes from a given vine the first year of bearing to make a judgement. I have high hopes for the delicious and Eudora varieties, while I'll probably be pulling up the jumbo, cowart, and Scarlett vines. I could keep the jumbo and cowart vines for wine production, I guess. But I originally planted all of these for table, jelly, and juice production. I just started making wine in case the sale of the grapes for other uses fails.

 

[toddrod]

So I have or had the following down here in deep south Louisiana:

2 Isons - Self Fertile purple - These vines are just really heavy producers. each vine is 20ft long and I am at 240lbs picked so far. Excellent flavor when fully ripe but a little tart when not
1 Pam - female bronze - Another heavy producer with really good flavor but the coons get most of them because of where I have it planted. Good flavor even when not fully ripe. Low acid
1 Sweet Jenny - female bronze - good producer with awesome flavor and juice production. growth kinda slow. Low acid
1 Pineapple - Self fertile bronze - Another big producer for me but growth for me has been very slow. Excellent flavor for jelly.
Supreme - pulled it because of poor growth and production
Darlene - pulled it because if poor production but it grows like gang busters and makes a pretty plant.

 

[jamesngalveston]

when i was a kid, we had 3 are 4 wild muscadines growing, on a fence row, and right to the top of the sweet gum trees.
the old house is gone and everything else, i went back there about 3 years agoe, the muscadine vines were still there and about 5 inches thick at the botton, and were to the top of the trees and back down, they were huge.
wonder how they got there to start with.

 

[olusteebus]

My limited experience has been noble and Carlos. Which ever the red one (I don't remember) is great.

 

[djrockinsteve]

Just back sweetened a Bronze last night. Very very good. I also have Moble and another to do. All have aged 2 full years. I'll bottle soon but great tasting now.

 

[garymc]

Olusteebus, Noble is your red one and Carlos is your bronze. These are the most commonly grown muscadines for commercial wine production.

I didn't specify how many of each. I have one of everything listed, except there are 14 delicious vines, 4 Eudora vines, 2 majesty vines, about 5 triumph vines, 6 Tara vines, and a few others that I propagated and don't know what they are.

 

[garymc]

James, do you have any vines you're currently growing?

 

[bigdrums2]

My Nesbit is very nice, good taste and disease resistant. Definitely try it, but get it purple.

 

[garymc]

I shouldn't have even used the word Nesbit. It's just a mislabeled vine. I call it #6 on my map of vines I use to keep track of what's what.

 

[BruceM]

I've got Ison's, Sugergate, Southland - all produce heavy & flavor is much improved this year with extra fertilizing. My Jumbos produce very heavy, huge grapes & this year ripened before any of the others, also taste better with extra fert. Other varieties: Noble, Nesbit, Cowart don't do much in my heavy clay soil. All are blacks.
I planted 6 varieties of reds last fall; so far only producing a few musc on a couple of vines - didn't even expect any this year.I have many wild vines on the property that taste many times better than any of the commercial varieties we've been talking about. Problem is I have to fight the deer/squirrels to get any. I always mix wild ones with comm. for my wine & jelly.

 

[jswordy]

when i was a kid, we had 3 are 4 wild muscadines growing, on a fence row, and right to the top of the sweet gum trees.
the old house is gone and everything else, i went back there about 3 years agoe, the muscadine vines were still there and about 5 inches thick at the botton, and were to the top of the trees and back down, they were huge.
wonder how they got there to start with.

Bird droppings.

 

[garymc]

I haven't had any bird predation on my muscadine grapes. I did have a possum feasting on them. He would spit the hulls out. So I'm suggesting possum, coon, or skunk droppings as well. I need to find a wild, productive muscadine vine and propagate it. I don't understand, if the wild ones are better tasting and they are a few yards away, why not put a couple in the vineyard?

 

[BruceM]

I keep trying to propagate wild ones. No luck from seed. I have a few I've managed to keep alive for over a year by pulling vines up & making a cutting near a root. They're very slow growing compared to comm. varieties. None have produced yet. I hope I have self-fertile vines. I try to get cuttings off ones that I've seen grapes on; that's a very small minority of all the musc. vines on the property.

 

[garymc]

I threw used must into my compost pile and now I have seedlings coming up in my flower beds, but since muscadines don't come back true to the parent, you have no idea if they'll even bear at all. I'd dig the whole wild vine up (picking one I knew produced good grapes) and transplant it. If your wild ones aren't self-fertile, your commercial ones should pollinate them. I've cut some text from an article on propagation:
Propagation by
Layering
Layering is another way to propagate a few vines at a time. Layering is also a good way to propagate varieties that may be hard to root by cuttings.
Root Layering: The simplest way of layering is to bend a healthy shoot down to the ground and bury a portion of it, leaving the tip end exposed (you can use a brick to hold it in place). After the vine goes dormant in the fall, the shoot can be dug and cut into rooted sections.
Air layering: Air layering is best accomplished when the vine is actively growing (May to August as with cuttings). First, cut off the bottom of a plastic soda bottle (see Fig. 11). Leave the shoot attached to the parent vine, and thread the growing point through the cut end of the bottle and out through the cap-end opening. Scarring the shoot helps the air layering process. Use a pocketknife to scrape down one side of the shoot to the cambium along the section that will be submerged in the mix. Fill the bottle with a pine bark propagation mix, such as a 1:1:1 mix of sand, peat and bark, and wet with room temperature water. Rainwater usually suffices to keep the mix wet, but check occasionally and hand water as needed. After the vine goes dormant in the fall, remove the shoot from the parent vine and cut into rooted sections. These can then be potted or stored bare root in a refrigerated area (40ºF to 45ºF) to await planting the following spring.
I cut this from an article. I've done both and both will get you vines. You can use the landscape pins that are used to pin down that black landscape cloth for pinning the vine down in the trench. I've tripped over the vine before and jerked it out of the ground. I don't cut it into rooted sections. I just cut it loose from Mama in the late winter, dig the whole thing, and plant it. One of the pics of air layering is of several shoots in one bottle. I thought I'd have several plants. I killed them all separating the roots. Either do one shoot in a bottle, or plant the whole thing if you do more than one and kill the least healthy one(s).

 

[garymc]

For some reason I can't edit the above post. I referred someone to this post, and in reviewing it I see that I left out an ingredient in the 1:1:1 propagation mixture. Sand. It should be one part each of sand, peat, and pine bark nuggets.

 

[MuskyDine]

I have found Cowarts to be one of my favorite varieties. This year it was the first to ripen and was a heavy producer. The taste is much like our native muscadine, but sweeter and with a more tender skin.
In a few days I will start a five gallon batch of wine using cowarts only.

 

[Julie]

For some reason I can't edit the above post. I referred someone to this post, and in reviewing it I see that I left out an ingredient in the 1:1:1 propagation mixture. Sand. It should be one part each of sand, peat, and pine bark nuggets.

I was able to edit it can you check to see if there are any other edits you need?

 

[garymc]

I don't see anything. Do you?

 

[reefman]

I see the edit: such as a 1:1:1 mix of sand, peat and bark

 

[garymc]

I mean I don't see any other changes needed.