Blueberry Farmer thinking of Muscadines

[3DBluesman]

Hi, I wrote a long intro. and when I went to submit it, it got erased.
I don't feel like writing all that again, so I'll keep this short.
I'm thinking of starting a small 20 vine muscadine vineyard for wine making, any advice anyone can give me will be deeply appreciated.
I own a U-Pick'em blueberry farm in SE Louisiana, see more at
www.3dblueberries.com Thanks, Bluesman

 

[garymc]

Welcome to Winemakingtalk.
When you design your trellis system, give some thought to how the muscadines will be harvested. I have one friend who did a single wire trellis with the wire about 4 or 4 and a half feet high. You have to get under the vines on your hands and knees to get to the grapes, which will be above you, except your hands are on the ground supporting you. So he gets a tarp and puts it under the vines and beats the wire, shaking loose the ripe muscadines, loose leaves, sticks, etc. With the posts in line with the wire, the tarp has to stop at the post/vine trunk where more grapes are concentrated. I would advise you not to use a low, single wire trellis. Some trellis systems use an upper and lower wire. Muscadines, in my experience put out shoots that will almost reach the ground from a high wire, so I recommend against that. When you buy your vines, I like tissue cultured vines that are disease free. There are a lot of varieties out there. I have had good luck and heard from others that they were pleased with the relatively new "delicious" variety. Here's an article describing them when they were released:
http://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/grapes/cultivarbulletins/Delicious-HortSci-44-1-200-201-2009.pdf
There are several muscadine growers here and I'm sure you will hear a variety of opinions.

 

[3DBluesman]

Thanks Gary, I will definitely keep all that in mind. hose "Delicious" muskys sound like the ticket for me Gary.
If I can find them.
Thanks, Dean

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome! I hate it when something that I have typed gets erased. I spend more time trying to recover it than it would take to retype it, but somehow retyping seems worse!

Sorry, no advice on the vineyard from me!

 

[ThePlantGuy978]

There are a few good suppliers of Muscadine vines and some you must stay away from like TY TY. They have a great Website but a very bad reputation. The biggest and the best one is Ison's. I too propagate and sell vines at www.MuscadinesAndMore.com
I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Hans
www.MuscadinesAndMore.com

 

[Arne]

While you are waiting for the muskadines to mature, pick some of your leftover blueberries and make some blueberry wine. You can get all the procedures down and bet you can find some other fruits to ferment. And welcome to winemaking talk. Lots of help here if you run into problems with your wines. Good luck with it, Arne.