Muscadine Traits Potentially Useful in Breeding

Abstract

Twenty-seven muscadine cultivars were evaluated to characterize them for traits that are potentially useful in breeding. Ranges among cultivars were: Yield-31 Kg per vine, percentage of berries with dry scar-41, berry weight-10 g, °Brix-6, number of seeds per berry-1, pH of ripe berries-0.9, and seed weight-8 g, suggesting that gains from breeding is possible for most traits. Fresh fruit cultivars need improvement in one or more of these traits. Pearson correlation coefficients of yield versus berry weight and seed weight were either negative or non-significant. Unlike most small fruits, berry weight was either not correlated or negatively correlated with number of seeds per berry. Variation in seed count among cultivars was small. Most cultivars produced three or four seeds per berry. Only ‘Summit’ and ‘Fry’ produced less than three seeds per berry. Except in 1998, the relationship between number of seeds per berry and seed weight was not significant.