Jim Charlie Cobb
Jim Charlie Cobb lives just a few miles from the McNeill Unit of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station in Pearl River County. However, in the 10 years he’s been practically a neighbor of the facility, he had never paid a visit until the occasion of the unit’s muscadine field day on Aug. 21.
“I’d pass by the station, I’d see people planting and I’d wonder what crop that was,” Cobb said.
The vineyard at the McNeill Unit contains almost every known muscadine variety in existence.
“The vineyard was set up as a repository of muscadine varieties,” said horticulture specialist John Braswell of the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “The field day offered a valuable opportunity to evaluate many different varieties in one location.”
And that’s what Jim Charlie Cobb did.
“I tasted several of them -- different kinds -- and they’re very, very good,” he said, “I’ve seen muscadines and grapes, but I’ve never seen anything like this vineyard before.”
The retired millwright actually came to the field day looking for some advice from MAFES and Extension specialists about his own muscadine vines.
“I have muscadines, but they haven’t done too well, and I wanted to find out how to go about raising them, fertilizing them. My vines produce the berries, but they’re not making yields like these are.”
The Carriere resident did not leave the McNeill Unit disappointed. “Yeah, I found out what I need to do,” Jim Charlie Cobb said when he reflected on his visit. “It’s really turned out good. MAFES and Extension do a good job getting information to growers.”
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