Grape Hybridization

.Abstract.  Although muscadine grapes have been under cultivation in the Southeastern U.S. for nearly 400 years, active breeding has only been practiced for the last 100 years, and the most modern cultivars are only a few generations removed from the wild. Although some improvements have been made in important traits including yield potential, disease resistance, and fresh and processing fruit quality, even greater advances must be made on these and other shortcomings in important horticultural traits before demand, crop value, and production of muscadines can be substantially increased.  The fresh market demands that cultivars are perfect-flowered, ripen uniformly, produce large seedless berries with thin edible non-astringent skins, crisp pulp, and excellent flavor; and dry picking scars and resistance to fruit rots for enhanced shelf life and attractiveness.  Muscadines cultivars for use in wines must also highly yield berries with high sugar content and stable pigments.  Currently, muscadine grape breeding and genetics research programs are being conducted privately in North Carolina, by universities in several states including Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, and by the USDA-ARS in Mississippi and recent milestones and strategies involving conventional and molecular approaches to interspecific hybridizations are discussed