How to Bury Muscadine Shoots to Root

More than 400 years after Sir Walter Raleigh first discovered muscadine growing prolifically on the coast of North Carolina, this bronze and purple-black grape continues to both thrive and captivate. The first native American grape to be cultivated, the muscadine -- known locally as scuppernong -- contains resveratrol, a compound found in French wines, and touted as having anticarcinogenic and cholesterol-lowering properties. Scientists at Mississippi State University predict muscadine may be the next big alternative crop in the Southeast. Muscadine grows vigorously and is easy to propagate, either with softwood cuttings or through root layering, a process known as pegging.

Things You'll Need

• Knife
• Pruning Shears
• Pine bark propagation mix, or a 1-1-1 mix of peat, sand and bark

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Instructions

1. • 1

     Locate a healthy, low-growing muscadine shoot and bend it to the ground. Make successive shallow cuts along the area of the shoot that makes contact with the ground, roughly a 4- to 6-inch area.

   • 2

     Cover the bent shoot and the cuts you made with soil. Leave the tender shoot tip exposed. If necessary, use a brick to hold the base of the shoot in place against the ground.

   • 3

     Remove the shoot from the ground in the fall, when the vine is dormant. After only a month, roots should have formed on the buried portion of the shoot. Cut the shoot into rooted sections using sharp pruning shears.

   • 4

     Plant the rooted sections in outdoor beds or in pots containing pine bark propagation mix, or a 1-1-1 mix of peat, sand and bark.