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updated 08/16/10 How to Harvest Grapes
You pick muscadines one at a time UNNLIKE bunch grapes suchas seedless
concords or Jacques. Muscadines are NOT climacteric- which means they will not ripen after they are picked. If you pick them green or sour they will remain green and sour. You pick Muscadines one berry at a time. You do not pick clusters. The best way to pick a muscadine, bronze or black, is by softness. You need to look at the grape and judge by the color if it needs to be felt. Then feel the grape ... if it is hard do not pick it. If you think it is a little soft the next step is to do a test eating. Is it sweet??? is the skin tender??? Repeat this process until you learn by feel what is a ripe muscadine grape. If you look at the end of the rows you can see the names of the varieties in each row. The pollinators insects of muscadines, tiny green bees, move up and down rows and do not move across rows so that is the reason for two varieties in each row. The bottom line is- if you are using color to decide whether or not to feel a berry you have to associate the color with the variety. This is not as difficult as it sounds... after a little bit you will recognize that this vine is a little more bronze or this is has a little pink or this is a little more yellow so you know when to feel the grape. In no time at all you will become an experienced muscadine picker and with such big berries the bucket is fill very quickly.
Table Grapes (includes concord seedless-types & Jacques grapes) Table grapes are harvested in bunches. You do not pick single berries. The bunch must be cut off from the main stem. If it is torn off it will make an infection court (create an open wound on the plant) for Botryosphaeria and Eutypa fungi which can cause death of the cordon [which is the main arm supported by the wire] or even the whole vine. This means that if you want to harvest these types of grapes you need to bring snippers. Snippers with pointed noses are best and so we do not allow children to pick grapes. We do not want them running with tools or cutting their own fingers. They can go with you into the grape fields and hold the bucket. Note that it will take two hands to cut off a bunch of grapes-one to hold the bunch and one to operate the snippers. The Happy Berry has four varieties of seedless concord table grapes: Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. How do you know when they are ripe? Venus, Mars, and Jupiter turn dark blue. Look for bunches with uniform dark blue color. If there is a red tinge they are not ready but will be in a few days. Be aware that the bunches on a vine do not ripen all at once- so you walk along looking for the dark blue bunches. Saturn will be a dark red, but the same guidelines apply. We have taken Neptune out. It was the yellow variety of table grapes. Fruit disease was severe in the Neptune and required more spraying than we were comfortable with. We look forward to seeing you on in the fields!
Think Farm, Think Fresh - Buy Local!
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