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bkrell76

Muscadines and fire

bkrell76
8 years ago

I've grown up around muscadines all my life but really just now got interested in growing them. I work in the woods a lot and trip over the dang vines all the time. My question is this, I just planted a home vineyard of Nobles, Ison's new 15.1.1 variety, and Gurney's Razzmatazz and was thinking about throwing a wild native vine or two in the ground, just to see how they do.

My question is a pretty obscure one but thought I'd ask. One of the fun things I do at work is helping with prescribed burning of our lands. I was out running (for excercise-I'm a marathoner) in an area we just burned and noticed abundant young vines probably a couple years old all over the area. We burn with fairly low intensity but obviously, it's still fire and the vines had black areas on them. But when I scratched them, they still seemed healthy and green inside. But I just wonder if it's worth it to dig a few of these up. Yeah, I realize I may end up with a bunch of male plants. And if so, I'll try again. But just curious. Any ideas?

Comments (8)

  • garymc
    8 years ago

    Unless there is something different about wild muscadines, they come in self-pollinating and female, which will be pollinated by a nearby self-pollinating. But lots of seedling muscadines won't bear or won't bear anything you'd want to eat. The probability is low, but you could also come up with the next greatest variety ever. I have a 3 year old seedling, crossed from 2 of my domestic varieties and it hasn't had a grape on it yet. If you want to make sure you're not wasting your time with the wild ones, select an individual vine that has good grapes on it, tie some yarn on it or some kind of marker, and dig it up the next winter for your yard.

  • Scott F Smith
    8 years ago

    In the wild there are many males. Nobody wants to buy one so they are not available commercially. So, you have about 50-50 of getting a total dud (male). Beyond that I don't know much. If its not too much work dig a few up and find out for yourself.

  • kingwood
    8 years ago

    I think his chances of getting a producing female is closer to 50 to 1. I have been eating wild muscadines since I was a child. Back then you might pass a 100 before you ran across a bearing one. Where I go fishing, you pass over 100 before you see a bearing one. Strange, but in my wooded neighborhood I have at least 10 bearing ones in a quarter mile bike ride from my house, but there are many other non-bearing ones in that stretch. The Wild muscadines in southeast tx are nowhere near the quality of the named varieties. If you are serious about a wild vine, my recommendation is the same as garymc, tag a fruiting one and dig it out when dormant.

  • bkrell76
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Thanks guys. I forgot about this post. I came up with the same idea-wait and watch for grapes then flag one for transplant. I only considered this because a couple of summers ago, a co-worker and I were working near a wild vine that was just packed with fruit. He ended up picking all he could reach and made a ton of jelly and some wine. With regard to the fire, the vines I was watching are now pretty leafed out. So they are evidently pretty fire-tolerant.

  • garymc
    8 years ago

    I've had a muscadine vine get weed-eater killed to the ground, then the shoots that came up got mowed with a lawn mower, then a mower wheel ran over it and tore all the limbs (wire sized) off the stump, and it's growing right now.

  • mark byrd (zone 8a)
    7 years ago

    4 months out of the year I spend controlled burning. In the pine uplands it's just like mowing them. They start over every year. We burn on a three year cycle so it's rare any of the muscadines ever produce. In the hardwood bottoms where the fire doesn't carry there's plenty but as Kingwood said you might check 50 before you find one bearing.

  • bkrell76
    Original Author
    7 years ago

    Yeah, I gave up on the idea because I didn't want to needlessly plant a male vine. I'm going to wait and flag ones that produce then maybe dig up this winter.

  • Reuben Gathright
    7 years ago

    I came across this post and wanted to offer some insight about muscadine grapes and fire.
    We have a rural property in Lake Charles, Louisiana that features a native Louisiana Muscadine vineyard.
    While clearing the land, we dumped ashes from a burn pit around the muscadine roots as a test to see how they would respond during October 2016.
    Two months later (Dec 2016), we now have vigorous regrowth in December!
    No other muscadines are exhibiting this behavior on the property.


    You can see some of the ash scattered on the ground next to the trunk of the muscadine in this photo. Notice the runners coming from the trunk.