Photo: Unknown — Public domain · source
Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
The classic Southeastern US table grape — a genuinely distinct, thick-skinned species, not a "foxy" wild grape — producing large, individually picked bronze or black berries with a sweet, musky flavor, embodied in heritage cultivars like 'Scuppernong' (North Carolina's state fruit) and 'Carlos'. ⚠ Know the look-alike: across eastern and central North America, moonseed (Menispermum canadense) twines alongside wild grapes, carries similar dark hanging clusters, and is potentially fatal. Three checks — a grape has 2–4 rounded, pear-shaped seeds while moonseed has ONE flat crescent seed; a grape climbs by forked tendrils and moonseed has none; a grape's leaves are toothed and moonseed's are not. Open a berry and look at the seed before eating any wild grape.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Vine
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Sept–Oct
- Mature size
- Vine 20–30 m unchecked; muscadines are trained on a single wire and held to 2–3 m
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Southeastern North America, from Delaware and Indiana south to Florida, Texas and Mexico
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Fast and vigorous once established, capable of 30 m+ in the wild
- Spacing
- 600 cm (236 in) apart — about 36 m² (388 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Broad, cordate-to-orbicular leaves, glossy dark green above with coarsely serrate margins, mostly hairless beneath, with unbranched (simple) tendrils opposite the leaves
- Root system
- Thick, phylloxera-resistant roots that allow own-rooted cultivation without grafting, unlike bunch grapes
- Fruit description
- Large individual berries up to 25 mm across (bronze, black or reddish depending on cultivar), thick-skinned with a sweet, musky flavor; often picked singly rather than in tight clusters
- Propagation
- Hardwood cuttings or layering for named cultivars (to keep them true to type), or seed (fresh-sown, 6 weeks cold stratification if stored) for wild seedlings
- Pollination
- SELF-FERTILE (hermaphrodite flowers)
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Muscadines have notably high magnesium and boron needs relative to bunch grapes; growers commonly apply Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) in early-to-mid summer, and a small amount of borax every 2–3 years before bloom on sandy, high-pH soils where boron deficiency is common — over-applying boron easily causes toxicity
How it spreads. Vigorous woody tendril climber capable of reaching 30 m+ into forest canopy in the wild; tendrils are unbranched, unlike the forked tendrils of most other Vitis species
Growing tips. Carries strong natural resistance to both Pierce's disease and grape phylloxera thanks to thick, resistant roots, so muscadines are usually grown own-rooted rather than grafted, unlike bunch grapes. Needs USDA zones 7–9 and about 200–400 chill hours. Most cultivars bear only female flowers and need a self-fertile ('perfect-flowered') cultivar such as 'Carlos' planted nearby for pollination.
Grow journal
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