Bad year for my muscadines

[toddrod]

Out of6 vines (2 Isons, 2 Darlenes, 1 Sweet Jenny, 1 Pam) I have maybe 2 buckets of grapes on the vines. For some reason my Isons did not form hardly any blooms this years which of course affected my other female vines. I did everything the same this year except I had to cut them back pretty hard to get the growth under control. They are the prettiest vines you have seen right now.
Has anyone else ever had this problems with self fertile muscadine varieties?

 

[Waldo]

Did you get a lot of rain this spring? Have good drainage? Sometimes Mother Nature just say's, OK, here is how it is going to be this year.

 

[toddrod]

We have had a pretty severe dry spell, considering this is South Louisiana, this spring. I do have spray irrigators by each vine and have been been watering frequently. Drainage is excellent.

 

[grapeman]

First off I know knothing about muscadines so this is just a generalization of grape growing. Bud initiation for blossoms is initiated the previous year by exposure to sunlight. If you have a poor amount of flower buds, generally it was from an overly vigorous growing vine the previous year. If they create self shading from a thick canopy, the light does not get into the center of the vine. Then if you prune back heavily the next year to open it up, you may remove most of the sparse potential flowers. Something to ponder a bit.

 

[Waldo]

Good info appleman. Thanks

 

[Danny]

Have 3 vines (1 red, 2 white) that all produced well for the first time last year. The red vine in particular put off about 40# of fruit and made some great wine!!


Pruned all plants back as some videos on the net instructed and this year got nothing on the red vine -- nothing. Maybe, as Appleman said, its just taking a year off after such a vigorous output last year. Both white vines are producing at a higher rate than last year, though. Guess will have a vintage of white wine this year, which will be OK.