Muscadines flower and set fruit on new growth, so annual pruning helps ensure that abundant new growth will yield a good harvest. There's one caveat: once the sap starts to run, they'll leak sap profusely when cut. It can go on for days. Pruning earlier in the dormant season is helpful to avoid that, but they won't be noticeably hurt by the leakage. With the best of intentions, I plan to do this at the end of January, then the realities of January weather deter me. When it's 45 and windy, it's not going to happen. So this year, the end of February and beginning of March it was. I did not prune them last year, so there was a lot to remove.
The pictures show the before / after for my Ison, which is easily the most vigorous and productive of the plants that I have.
The sap was running, especially with the last ones pruned, but it wasn't too bad: it stopped after an hour or so. I have seen it much worse. Now it's just a waiting game until they break dormancy.
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