10 Steps to Successful Muscadine Growing

Fry Seedless muscadine

In case you missed the muscadine field day, here are 10 steps to to guide you toward successful muscadine growing.

1) Site Selection - The most critical issue in choosing a planting site for muscadines is good internal soil drainage. A good muscadine location is a well-drained and in full sun.


2) Soil test- Land preparation should begin the year before planting. Conduct a soil test and correct any deficiencies in P and K levels. Adjust the pH to 6.5 with dolomitic limestone.



3) Establishment - Use contact or systemic herbicides to clean up infestations of johnsongrass, bermudagrass, or nutsedge in the year before vines are set. Build rows 4-12” high and four feet wide to improve water drainage.

4) Trellising - Construct trellis before planting vines. Use a single-wire (9 guage) trellis and space rows 10 to 12 feet apart; set posts 20 ft apart within rows and plant one vine at each post (rather than between posts).


5) Cultivar Selection - If you plan to sell the fruit, then you need varieties with a dry stem scar such as Nesbitt, Summit, Tara, and Triumph. If you want muscadines for eating fresh, any kind will do. If your goal is to produce wine, you will get better juice yield using Carlos, Doreen, Magnolia, Welder, or Noble.


6) Planting - Plant in late winter when vines are dormant. Commercial grow tubes (24-36” long and 3-4” in diameter) will increase growth and protect vines in the first growing season, Remove the tubes in late September so the vines can develop cold hardiness in the fall.

7) Provide adequate water during growing season – You will need to apply one inch per week. If the soil feels dry, water. If it feels wet, do not water.

8) Maintain good weed control.

9) Harvest fruit when ripe – Selling fruit that looks ripe but is not will cause a loss of customers or produce a poor quality processed product.

10) Prune annually to develop fruiting spurs.

It's Muscadine Season

Noble Muscadine

The 2010 Muscadine Field Day will be held on Saturday, August 21, 2010 beginning at 8:30 am at the McNeill vineyard. The vineyard is located on Highway 11 just south of McNeill, MS.

 

This year we will have more informative talks including:

Dr. Wayne Porter, MSU-ES, will speak on Muscadine Production and growing muscadines.

Dr. Blair Sampson, USDA, will talk about insect pests and beneficial insects.

Dr. Steve Stringer ,USDA, will give you an update about new and upcoming varieties.

The speakers will be available for questions about the varieties as you have the opportunity to walk through the vineyard. There will be information about the different varieties, which are good for juice, which are better for eating fresh, and which is better for wine making. There will also be recent research information on resveratrol, a natural chemical found in muscadines.

On your stroll through the vineyard, you see the different varieties growing and be able to taste them. Muscadines have a unique flavor, different from table grapes that are sold in the grocery stores. There are also a couple of varieties that would be great in your landscape. We will provide you with a zip-lock bag to take some home.

Pest Alert: Bagworms are on the move

The common bagworm is found from all along the eastern half of the United States. They most commonly attack arborvitae, juniper, cedar, and Leyland cypress. They occasionally occur on broadleaf trees and shrubs.

You can easily recognize this insect by the tapering grey to tan silk bags it produces and attaches to its host plant. Bags are about 1 1/4 inches. Some of the needles or leaves of the plant are usually woven into the bag. If the bags contain caterpillars, they are not firmly attached to the plant and they move it some they can get to more food. When the insects pupate, they use strong silk to attach the bag to the plant.

Adult females are wingless and never leave the bag. Eggs, as many as 500, are deposited inside the bag. This is how this pest overwinters. In the spring, newly hatched larvae either remain on the original plant or spread to other plants by ballooning on a silken parachute.

The feeding caterpillars damage the host plant by defoliating it. When only a few caterpillars are present, defoliation is negligible, but heavy infestations can result incomplete, or severe defoliation of individual plants. In severe cases you end up with a defoliated plants covered with bags. These plants usually die.

Because of this insect’s limited mobility, infestations are often localized, and you can hand pick bags before eggs hatch in the spring. It is easier to remove bags of larvae than pupal cases or egg cases, which are attached to the plant with strong silk. These often have to be cut away with scissors or pruning shears.

You can control this pest with foliar insecticide sprays, but choose your treatment carefully. Chemical controls:

carbaryl - Sevin

permethrin - Hi Yield Garden, Pet, and Livestock spray or Bonide Eight

cyfluthrin – Bayer Advanced Garden Power Force Multi-Insect Killer

cyhalothrin -Triazide Soil and Turf Insect Killer

Spinosad - Fertilome Borer, Bagworm, Tent Caterpillar, and Leafminer spray

Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis ) – Thuricide, DiPel

Spinosad and Bt products are less likely to flare mites.

Treat small, recently planted trees with a hand sprayer or use a hose-end sprayer designed to treat trees and shrubs to treat trees up to 20 to 25 feet tall. Treat in mid-April through early June to control newly hatched caterpillars before they cause much damage. Adults are hard to control because they are protected by their bag.

Attack of Weird Insects

In the last 10 days I have had 3 calls about and insects called the wooly alder aphid.  See photo.

Woolly alder aphids require both alder and silver maple to complete their life cycle.

Control of this pest on alder is rarely employed because alder is not used as a landscape plant, and predators, such as lacewings and lady beetles, may keep this pest below damaging levels. Infested silver maple trees may become so large that control measures are expensive.
Chemical controls include malathion, Bayer Advanced Tree and Shrub Insect Control, insecticideal soaps, and horticultural oils.

Pruning Tips

This is the time of year for prunig. Pruning is one of the least understood practices of landscape maintenance. Basically you don't prune unless there is a good reason to do so.

One of the main reasons we prune is to maintain or limit the size and shape of a plant. But if you have to frequently prune any plant to make it fit into an area, it probably should not have been planted there in the first place. It might be a good idea to consider replacing it with one of smaller mature size that better fits the space. Another reason we prune is to remove diseased, dead, or abnormal plant tissue. Or we might be pruning to stimulate flowering and/or fruit production. We may want to develop a specific plant form, like a hedge, topiary or an espalier. We might need to remove plant parts that may interfere with structures or utility lines or that may create a visibility problem. Most of this type of problem could be avoided if the mature height and width of shrubs and trees are taken into consideration before planting.

Know your plant type before you begin pruning. When to prune is particularly important. For plants that flower in late spring, prune now. Tese plants include crapemyrtle, floribunda roses.

For early spring flowering plants, prune in late spring after their flowering season is over. These plants include azaleas, dogwoods, forsythia, spirea