Planting Muscadine cuttings to transplant at new home?

[Satanta]

With the new homestead I, of course, am pre-planning my gardens and such. Move is going to take place in August which, of course, is the hottest time of the year.

I want to take some of the muscadine or whatever they call the will grapes here in NC. Ben tending hem for years, even have a hoop house set up for them.

So, hoop house is coming down and I need to figure out if it is possible to take cuttings or root clusters and transplant at new site.

Everything I've seen shows it done Fall/Winter, that is not an option as I imagine they are going to plow under or bulldoze any of the gardens and other things left behind.

 

[Raggedyman]

sat -
I've moved muscadine root clusters a few times. I'll tell you now if they're big vines its hit and miss. before you do anything you will need to get ready to move them. when you dig them do it in the very early morning before the heat of the day. once they're dug and re-potted you'll want to have a shady spot to keep them - NO SUN for at least 3 weeks - then gradually move them to partial shaded until late fall - end oct early nov - when you'll replant them. check the pots from time to time - they'd rather be a bit dry than too wet. grapes like to be hot and dry

get some GOOD container potting soil or compost - none of the miracle grow crap with fertilizer in it. some play sand or sphagnum peat moss and some perlite. you will need some large containers with good drainage - these need to be large enough to hold your roots.

mix your container potting material/sand or moss/perlite about 70/20/10. mix all that well and break up any clumps. fill bottom third of containers

chose your smaller vines - before you dig - prune them back VERY HARD saving only your strongest 2-4 canes and those about 3' maximum. strong canes only - nothing else to draw energy from the roots. this time of year they are going to bleed a lot - its OK. take as much of the root ball as you can. repot them carefully - no air pockets. water them in and set them in the shade. you want them to go dormant.

be sure you have their new location picked out. when you plant them water them in and fertilize with 10-10-10. then again in the spring when they bud out. you wont have any grapes that first year - concentrate on training your canes to your arbor

you might find this thread on building arbors useful FARM - for TOOSH et.al. - a tutorial on grape arbors - with pictures included

good luck - hope that helps. there's nothing better than muscadines - scuppernogs inparticular

 

[Raggedyman]

sat
bee thinking on this - you MAY be better off to just leave the old vines there and get new ones for the new place in the spring. you're going to have to prune them back really hard or they will not make it. either way your not going to have fruit for at least a year and quite possibly two years.

when you consider the cost to get all the materials to successfully transplant those older vines and the work involved you may want to just toss that $$$ and effort into doing your arbors now and have them ready for bare new bare root starts in the spring.

 

[kyrsyan]

I don't know what to say. I have wild muscadine and the stuff just won't die. And it keeps popping up in new places. Heck there have been several times I was sure it was dead only to have it pop back up the next year. I have 3 or 4 new masses of vines this year, after I had gone through and ripped everything out several times.

But, I have never tried to transplant it. So maybe that's the difference.

 

[Raggedyman]

I have wild muscadine and the stuff just won't die.

sounds like what you MIGHT have are what we call "fox grapes" here . . . lotssa vines but very little fruit. muscadines are a hearty variety of grapes but they don't like to be moves - especially in the middle of fruiting season. late fall is the best time - after they've gone dormant and been pruned waaaaaaaay back. had to move a few several years ago - older vines. even doing it at the most opportune time they were unhappy and I lost about a quarter of them

 

[Martinhouse]

Maybe you could try air layering your vines rather than digging them up. Or maybe layering them in small enough pots (two or three gallon?) that you could easily transport and maintain in your new place until fall planting time?

If you're having hot sunny weather, maybe wrap the layering pots with shiny aluminum foil or at least bank them on the sun side with something to keep the soil a little cooler

 

[NCGirl]

Are they scuppernong? If so you can't kill them, LOL.

These are 8 vines hubby dug up last fall and set in water for an hour or so that it took him to replant them. No real care about how they were planted. Never got watered or anything. 7 of the 8 survived. Ok, you can kill them but it's pretty difficult.

 

[kyrsyan]

sounds like what you MIGHT have are what we call "fox grapes" here . . . lotssa vines but very little fruit. muscadines are a hearty variety of grapes but they don't like to be moves - especially in the middle of fruiting season. late fall is the best time - after they've gone dormant and been pruned waaaaaaaay back. had to move a few several years ago - older vines. even doing it at the most opportune time they were unhappy and I lost about a quarter of them

Nope, it's muscadine. I bought it and brought it home. Life interfered and it didn't get planted. I thought it died in the pot. It didn't. It just tried to take over the world. 5+ years later it's still trying. But I did, finally, get the main trunk vine dead and all the way down to the ground. Lesson learned. It won't get bought again until the home for it is made and ready.

 

[Satanta]

Are they scuppernong? If so you can't kill them, LOL.

These are 8 vines hubby dug up last fall and set in water for an hour or so that it took him to replant them. No real care about how they were planted. Never got watered or anything. 7 of the 8 survived. Ok, you can kill them but it's pretty difficult.

View attachment 350483

Yeah, that's what they are called. Scupperdines.