Getting wild grapes to produce more. Anybody here ever tried this?

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Wild muscadines? I think they have male/female plants. It may not be getting pollinated that well.

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Not sure what type they are. They get dark purple when ripe.
Around here, people talk about muscadines, scupadines, possum grapes, river grapes etc...
I have no clue what they actually are.

scupanon, scuppadine, scuppernong, etc are all the same thing and a type of muscadine.

The scupanon tend to be green where muscadine are purple.

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scupanon, scuppadine, scuppernong, etc are all the same thing and a type of muscadine.

The scupanon tend to be green where muscadine are purple.

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That's good to know.

So maybe I should plant some more for better cross pollination?

Also occurred to me, that maybe it has been producing more than we know, but when it was up in the tree, birds and squirrels were getting most of the grapes?

I have an arbor in back with a dark early producing grape(large leaves) on one side and a scuppernong on the other. I have no idea how to manage either one. have never trimmed them, soo I guess I need to look into this.

You prune muscadines in the early spring before the vines start to bud. Leve branches ever y3 or 4 inches on the main vine and only leave 2 or 3 nodes per banch. Isons Nursery has great Youtube videos on pruning.

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I think I read somewhere that muscadine produce in new shoots so if true, trimming the vines would produce more fruit. No idea when to trim though.

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Bingo ... and you trim in late winter around here. January.

Also, birds and squirrels are gonna get their share no matter what you do which is why wild vines often grow on fence lines where the birds take a dump.

I have a scuppernong in my back yard. I trim it probably every two weeks from the spring through harvest time in the fall. But I am limited in area in the yard. I cut back a lot of the new really small growth to keep it from being a crazy bush.

It has a horizontal run about 12 feet long and an arch in the opposite direction. Every year my yield has increased. I got 7 1/2 lbs. last year.

If you had more space and could let it go wild I bet you could get away with trimming it monthly. I will also add that I never completely cut mine back to the main stems though.

Make a run about 4 feet off the ground so it is easy to prune and tend to them. Use T posts or 4x4s and run some fence wire between. If you do wood it would be easy to run parallel wires about 2’ apart by having pieces of 2”x4” on the top of the posts. You could do two runs vertically but F working on your knees if you can avoid it.

Or get something rod iron premade thing if you care about it being fancy.

Then train the vines by tying them loosely to the wire with construction twine or zip ties. Wrap them around the wire but don’t overdue it or they will break. The vines you don’t train trim. Clean your pruners with alcohol to avoid spreading diseases between your plants.