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Fruit & Orchards

Need Help Choosing Muscadines

14 years ago

I'm currently planting at a new house and most of my planned landscaping is edible plants. My son and I have a liking for the black or red muscadines but I'm having problems choosing plants because I have no real experience with them. I went through the extension services pamphlets and somewhat narrowed down the cultivars. Then I called the master gardener line. That didn't go well. So I'm asking for anyone here who has experience to please give me their recommendations.

Please realize that growing any form of grape is new to me. I'm in extreme North Alabama and do get cold weather so the plants need to be somewhat cold hardy. Since I can only really put in 3 or 4 plants I'm sticking with the self fertile varieties.

Here's the list I managed to narrow down from the extension service information: Alachua, Cowart, Duplin, Ison, Nesbitt, Noble, Redgate, Regale, Tarheel. I'd be interested in others if you've had good experience with them growing in this area but only black or red cultivars. We will be using them for fresh eating, juice, and canning.

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Comments (7)

gene_washdc
14 years ago
I have the Ison variety here in Washington DC (zone 7) and have never had problems with winter damage. I think they start ripening here around the second week of September. I've made juice from them, which I like, but usually just eat them fresh when I'm in the garden. I read posts from others who prefer the newer females like Supreme, etc. and aren't so fond of Ison's, but I am quite happy with it. Recall reading somewhere too that if one is looking for "old-fashioned" muscadine flavor that Ison's is the best variety.
destin_gardener
14 years ago
As Gene said, some people like the newer female muscadines. What you can do is get a couple of the self-fertile cultivars, and maybe a couple of the "female" only cultivars, since that should give you enough "male" flowers to make sure you get a good fruit set. Remember though that muscadines can take over an area if they are not kept in check by proper pruning. I can't remember if muscadines only produce on new wood like most European grapes do or not. Someone with more viticulture experience should be able to answer that. Good luck.
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gonebananas_gw
14 years ago
In Z7 the cold tolerance should be a pretty important criterion too. "Carlos" is often mentioned. "Alachua" being from Florida might be suspect. There is a lot on muscadine info on the net. Just Google -- muscadine Alabama, then with Mississippi, Georgia, and Carolina successively. Look especially for .edu suffixes.

(There should be a better way to tell people what to google. The obvious way, using quotes, unfortunately has a special meaning to the search engine if the quotes are added in the search.)
kiwinut
14 years ago
Nesbitt is definitely one of the hardier cultivars, and the big berries are good for fresh eating. Mine has never had any damage down to near 0 F. I would definitely pick it for a black self-fertile type from your list. Noble is good for wine due to its more stable pigments, but not so good for fresh eating. I agree that Alachua could be risky. Generally, the selections from North Carolina fare much better in more northern areas than the Florida or south Georgia selections. Not sure that Tarheel, which is a very old cultivar, is available anywhere these days.
eskota
14 years ago
Ison is the best one here, very reliable and productive.
kyrsyan
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you for the information. Alachua was listed as cold hardy, along with other traits, which was why it was still on the list. Makes me wonder about their definition of cold hardy.

Noble was recommended by another person as well. So it looks like I'll go looking for Noble and Ison. I'll keep Nesbitt in mind if I can't find those (I found some more info on Nesbitt that makes me think that I might want to get it rather than Noble. Just going to have to see what's available). BTW thank you for letting me know that Tarheel would be hard to find. My luck would have been to choose that one.
campbellms
14 years ago
I've got Cowart and a variety called Jumbo, that are both doing quite nicely here in North MS (Corinth). Both have survived 2 winters (this winter was particularly cold)

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