'Eudora' Muscadine

The USDA station at Poplarville, Mississippi has released a new purple muscadine cultivar, named 'Eudora' after Eudora Welty (although Eudora to me will always be an e-mail client). I'm not entirely sure, but I think this may be the first cultivar out of this program, though in way it's really just a continuation of the old University of Florida grape breeding program run for years by J.A. Mortenson. When that program was discontinued, many of the vines were propagated to Poplarville, where the program was continued first by Creighton Gupton and now Steve Stringer. (Strangely, very little went to the grape breeding program at Florida A&M University, which was beginning around the same time.)

Although the barriers to grape culture in the South remain considerable, muscadines do well and really have a lot of potential...the really issue is creating a market. I think progress is being made on this front. We had two varieties at the grocery store up the road last time I was there, and I think this year is the first that I've routinely seen muscadines at that store.

Anyway, I haven't had much luck finding information on 'Eudora', just this page. If I find anything else interesting, I'll post it.