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Florida Gardening

Wild Muscadine vines with no grapes

dirtygardener73

12 years ago

There is a wooded area near me that has tons of wild muscadine vines. I was thinking that this fall, I could get some grapes, but evidently, these vines are sterile. Not a grape to be found. Maybe a late freeze last spring got them, but it's a disappointment. $5 a pack in the store for muscadines and scuppernongs, which is too rich for my budget.

I so miss my wild muscadines. In SC, I had them everywhere on my property, and made grape jelly every year. I wouldn't be making jelly anymore, but I love eating them. Brings back childhood memories of sitting in a big oak tree eating them by the hour.

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Comments (12)

westhamutd
12 years ago
I have a couple of nursery bought muscadines,as well as a bunch of wild vines growing in the wooded areas on my property.The nursery varieties flowered very early in the Spring & I had fruit by early Summer.I think it was pretty close to that time,that I saw some very tiny fruits on the wild grapes also.
ritaweeda
12 years ago
I have never seen ripe fruit on the wild grapes on our property, although I have seen the beginnings of them, and I try to keep an eye on them throughout the year. Either they are not fruiting or the wildlife is getting it before I can see it. The wild grapes where I used to live always had fruit every year. - ????
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I try to cut them down every year, but man do those things grow fast! And thick vines! Some are as thick as my wrist and grow so high up in the trees there's no way I can reach them. But...I'll find a place for the new ones and keep a good eye on them. Thanks. ;) V.
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Rubythorne, where in MO are you? In SE MO (bootheel, my youthful home area), there is a wild grape (Vitis rotundifolia), commonly called Muscadine and/or Scuppernong grape, that are very sweet and are used extensively in the SE US for jam, jelly and home wine making. They are a fairly tender species and probably wouldn't survive if winter temperatures fall below 0F for a length of time. Many wild grapes are dioecious, requiring male & female vines, usually within 25 ft. of each other. Some selections and hybrids have been bred that are monoecious (hermaphroditic), having male & female flowers on the same plant. These are one's that are usually available from nurseries. Good luck on your quest!
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When I think of pruning a muscadine I think of pruning it out of trees and power lines. Here's my two muscadines (7,8,9? yrs old). They were carefully picked out and bought but I cannot remember their names now. They cover that entire side of that yard (several trees) and have been cut out of the power lines. A good old mature muscadine makes a think tangle of vine that you can lay in without fear of falling through. The old gardening books called it a bower. So you climb the tree, lay in the vine and eat to your hearts delight. As a kid that's how we did it with the wild vines (we would climb 40' in a pine tree and lay in the wild muscadine vine to eat grapes)- and that's how I do it now.
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About 18 months ago, I moved to a house with a big yard in which some bygone owner of yesteryear planted some grape vines (there are a lot in this neighborhood, which used to be primarily Greek). I know essentially nothing about growing grapes, and I have no idea what variety of grapes these vines are. They did not bear fruit last summer (our first in this house), but I see copious flowers on them this year. they are planted along a fence in soil of completely unknown fertility. How do I encourage them to bear fruit? Should I be watering? Fertilizing? Pruning? they are pretty wild and all over the place. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Also, how can I determine what variety of grape they are?
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tryinginfla9b
12 years ago
I usually pick wild grapes in early August. The only ones by me that produce are the very large mature vines growing along the edge of the road by the drainage ditches. I'm assuming the extra sunlight and water may be a factor.

The tangles of tree-spanning vines in the woods don't seem to produce.

Larry
judyk_2008 9a DeLeon Sprs. (NW Volusia)
12 years ago
I have tons of wild muscadines on my fences and around my property. I've never gotten any grapes either.
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
12 years ago
I'm guessing wildlife IS eating up that fruit. FWIW, my Master Gardener aunt played a trick on us once when we were visiting her in WI; we came upon some wild grapes while touring a local park & started to pick the fruit, while she hung back & watched - those grapes were so sour! She laughed & explained that was why they were still on the vine.
bamboo_rabbit
12 years ago
We have a ton of wild muscadines here and like others I had never seen any grapes on them. A few weeks back while cutting down a tree I was surprised to see it had a ton of mature grapes in the top of the tree that you could not see from the ground, they were not bad at all.
flatwoods_farm
12 years ago
It's too late for any muscadine fruits now and many vines are male only. Paul.
akaj9
12 years ago
Mine were the small wild ones on the front fence area...they matured a month or so ago....and the wildlife takes them FAST
Stefanie Seaver
6 years ago
I found these growing in my yard around and up my cedar tree and engulfing my rose bushes. What can I do with these grapes. I feel like I should do somehing with them instead of letting them go to waste?
Glenn Jones(9b)
6 years ago
You can eat them ,make jam or wine if you have a lot.
Pea
6 years ago
When i was a kid we would pick the wild grapes and mom would make jelly. They were too sour to eat but made excellent jelly.
flsusie
6 years ago
We made syrup from the wild grapes. Totally different tangy taste, nothing at all like grapes. Seems to me the vines we usually got the fruit from had been cut back because they were in the way. Maybe that's the trick to get fruit.

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