Blueberry
 

I know it takes a few years for a blueberry plant to fruit if growing by seed. How long would it take for a cutting or a TC? Does the cutting retain the age of its donor plant?

Re: Blueberry
 

Cuttings will flower and fruit the next spring -- and sometimes in a "false spring" we occasionally have herein the fall. TC's are supposed to take two years. I obtained some a few months ago. They just might flower this coming spring, but the plants will not be large enough to produce a significant crop.

Re: Blueberry
 

The recommendation I got from a blueberry farm was to pick all flowers off the bushes for the first 2-3 yr so that the bush would put more energy into growth.

Re: Blueberry
 

That is the same info I was given . But it is easier said than done.

Re: Blueberry
 

I'm seeing my first seedling germinate out of a batch of 200+ seeds. I'm hoping these are hardy plants because they'll have to stay inside for another 3-4 months before I can put them outside.

Re: Blueberry
 

i want to grow blue barres so badly but i always thought that here in the hot desert south west it would be imposable but I'm told that there are variates that can thrive here so I'm going to try some in a pot i thought pots would be better as i can control their PH

Re: Blueberry
 

Pauly, when summer rolls around again for me (June or so), remind me to collect seed from the blueberries that grow in our altitude deserts. They'd probably do great for you in Vegas.

Re: Blueberry
 

Re: Blueberry
 

These guys seriously take a month to germinate in regular room temperature. They also start out nearly microscopic. It was pretty hard to even take a picture of them, but hopefully they will put on some size quickly afterwards.

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Re: Blueberry
 

These guys have started germinating almost 2 weeks ago and they are still about the same size without even dropping their seed caps yet. I think they either require a lot more light or just grow very slow. I might need to add some sulphur to hopefully get them to start growing.

For someone who has grown them from seed, do they grow extremely slow for the first few weeks, maybe first few months?

Re: Blueberry
 

all this talk of blueberries... I have been trying to set aside some extra money(haha) to get 10-20 plants next month!

Blueberries are my favorite I grew up as a kid in Seattle with my grandmother having 25 blueberry bushes and eating them all the time. Some great memories...

Re: Blueberry
 

Speaking of Blue Berries! I just Bought 2 Plants their about 4ft tall. I got brightwell & tifblue. But I'm undecided if I want to put them in a big planter so as to be able to control their soil conditions or plant them in ground and just amend the soil around them and eventually put other plants that require the same soil conditions,

Any Suggestions?

Re: Blueberry
 

I'm not sure what type those varieties are. There are northern highbush (the type that produce the most commercial crops), northern lowbush (mostly wild types that we find growing in the woods), something called southern highbush (never heard of these, until the last couple of years), and rabbit-eye (which I thought, until recently, was the only kind that could grow in the south.)

However, where I live, blueberries grow quite well. Staten Island is actually closer to New Jersy, than it is to the rest of New York, and New Jersey is just about the blueberry capital of the U. S. The important thing for these (northern highbush) is they need acid soil (Miracid, or Hollytone, etc.) Many blueberry varieties are named after towns in NJ.

I don't know what varieties you can grow where you are, but I've seen the northern ones grown as far north as Quebec.

Re: Blueberry
 

I have northern high bush varieties mixed from a grower in kentucky.

I have fairly alkaline soil up here in upstate NY so I'm going to have to mix in some pine mulch to amend the soil before I plant the blueberries. I just need to find products that can acidify my soil so that blueberries can survive in my area.

What would be something fairly cheap that can amend a lot of soil for blueberries?

Re: Blueberry
 

Hey Steve,

Battery Acid! I'm not kidding. You have to be very careful about quantities, but I once had a tropical fish import business, and there were little kits that regulated the Ph up or down, for hoobyists, but when you had to adjust thousands of gallons, you had to find something cheaper.

Re: Blueberry
 

The commercial blueberry growers I have spoken to said they do best in a pot. They grow them in 100% pine bark. Been communicating with someone in blueberry business for ages over the last few months and he is the one I will be getting my plants from...

I will be going with a few different varieties so I can harvest from april to july....

Re: Blueberry
 

I have over 17 varieties (plus a few un-named) so that I can get fresh berries from April into August--mostly rabbit-eye and southern highbush. Blueberries can grow from Florida to Canada--as long as the soil is acid.

As for options for acidification, aluminum sulfate is pretty cheap, ammonium sulfate can be used as an acidic fertilizer, but like the earlier post said sulfuric acid (battery acid) will do. Just be careful--add acid to water (not the other way around or it can explode --more or less). It gets very hot when mixed, but I would mix it with water and pour it on the soil. I would start with just a few ounces is 5 gal of water and see how much that changes the pH.

Re: Blueberry
 

It looks like I might be able to get the most out of my money by using aluminum sulfate since I can get for under a dollar per pound. Sulfuric acid looks extremely expensive so I'm not sure if is concentrated enough to be worth it.

Would an item like this look good? Aluminum Sulfate 50 lb Low Iron - eBay (item 380013335133 end time Jan-21-10 14:43:56 PST)

I think I might need 3 applications per year of about 3lbs per square yard so I might need a 90lbs of it every year if my blueberry patch is 10 square yards.

Re: Blueberry
 

These Two varieties are a Rabbit Eye type.

Re: Blueberry
 

Thanks to the university of Florida's agricultural department there are a bunch of varieties for the south!

Bluegem, Sharpblue, Floridablue, Aliceblue, Beckyblue, Avonblue,Bonita, Chaucer, Choice, Misty, Windy, Snowflake, Marimba, Star, Southmoon, Santa Fe, Bluecrisp, Jewel, Sapphire, Emerald, Windsor, Milennia, Southern Belle, Sebring, Savory, Florida Rose

These are the varieties I will be picking up to grow. Already producing fruit, the gentlemen I am getting them from has set aside a few plants that are ready to be re-potted into bigger pots.

The early producing plants are southern highbush - Emerald, Star and Jewel variety. They produce mid April through mid May. The late season plants (Mid May to early July) are called rabbiteye - Woodard, Bluegem, Homebell, and Briteblue.