Quote:
Originally posted by procon
Pat,
That appears to be what I call Fox Grapes, small Grapes & very sour. As children we use to cut the vine & use as a rope swing. 
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I did research on them for the last hour and Fox or Foxy grapes seems to be a generic term for most native southern grapes other than muscadines such as Scuppernongs.
If they respond anything like wild blackberries do; if you cultivate the vine, the grapes (or berries) get much larger and the sweetness will improve based on how much sun exposure I can provide. I did this at my house in Winston-Salem. I had a vacant lot next door that was literally full of blackberries. I mowed about half of them down, leaving the others in rows that I could reach from both sides. I then mulched the remaining berries, added a touch of fertilizer, and the combination of additional nitrogen, additional soil moisture retention from the mulch, and lots of sunlight reaching the plants, I harvested 40-50 pounds of berries the following year, and every year after. The only reason I've planted domesticated blackberries here is I wanted the thornless type. I don't have a shortage of wild ones either, though, but I'm not cultivating them.
What I think I'll do, next winter, is get as far up in the trees the grape vine is in as I can and cut it enough to bring it down, then run it out towards the pasture, that would have it running west to east, and since the pasture is a southern slope, the vine should get a lot of sun next spring. Then when the grapes are ripe, I'll know if I have something worth fooling with any longer.
I sure hate to remove such an "old boy" vine like that, but the location it's in will be cleared of trees in about two-three years to expand the pasture to the edge of a small valley, or gulley. The gulley is where the shooting range is going, at some point, but that's for another thread.
