Growing Blueberries

Beyond having beautiful, delicious fruits, blueberries also have high nutritious and landscape value. You can make pies, muffins, ice cream, pancakes more pleasant by using blueberries. Of course, the blueberries plant takes 5 to 6 years to give you a meaningful harvest. But, blueberries will be an excellent addition to your yard in terms of high landscape value before fruiting.  

Health Benefits

• Blueberries are low in calories and help you in weight loss. One cup of berries contains only 84 calories.
• Blueberries contain vitamin C, which helps your body’s immune system prevent diseases such as scurvy.
• Blueberries are an excellent source of manganese, which can improve the health of your brain, bones, and nervous system.
• These berries also contain vitamin K, which assists the body with blood clotting and bone metabolism.
• Blueberries contain a massive amount of antioxidants such as anthocyanins, ellagic acid, and resveratrol. These antioxidants are helpful to your body as they prevent cell damage by keeping free radicals in your body at a reasonable level.
• Antioxidants in blueberries can help to reduce the risk of esophagus, mouth, breast, and colon cancer.

 

Planting Blueberries

Choose the Variety

For a successful blueberry garden, it’s essential to choose a suitable variety. The number of chill hours in your area will help you decide what types of varieties to plant. You can also contact your local Ag department to find out the chill hours in your area. For example, if you live in a cold area with a thousand chill hours or so, get a northern high bush type. For warmer climates, go with lower chill hour southern high-bush. Get at least two varieties for optimum yield and pollination.

Choose site

Growing delicious blueberries all start with the soil. They are acid-loving plants like azaleas and rhododendrons. You can do a pH test to check out the pH in your area. Blueberries like it to be between four and five on the pH scale. Also, choose a site where you have easy access to water. For the first year, they must stay irrigated most of the time.

Planting

When you are planting the blueberry bushes, you plant them at container depth and, even more importantly, look at the spacing requirements for your particular bush. Then, water adequately to your berries after you planted them at your desired place.  

Care

• Make sure your berries are well mulched and watered.
• Make sure your berries are getting 1-2 inches of water every week.
• Make sure that there is no weed competition at the base of the blueberry plant.
• Be sure to prune off anything that was damaged during the winter.
• Trim off any low-growing side shoots at the bottom.
• Please don’t allow your plant to produce fruits and take all its energy to make a strong, healthy structure.
• Pinch back any blossom developing on the branch and make sure the young berries use all their energy for growth.
• Protect your blueberry bushes from wildlife. Rabbits, deer, and birds love blueberry bushes and their berries. So make sure that you are ready to protect not only your bushes but your berries too.

 

Harvesting Blueberries

The berries are ready when they have taken on their distinctive blue color all over and pull away easily from their stalks. Leave them on the plants for a few days after turning completely blue for the very best flavor. Berries are unlikely to ripen all at once, so go over plants often so you don’t miss any. Fresh is best, but if you like a bumper crop, you can freeze the excess. Use your berries in any number of lip-smackingly delicious preserves.  

Pests, Disease and Their Management

• Botrytis Blossom Blight(Botrytis cinerea)

There are three main times of the year when the botrytis is a threat to your berries, during the first phase of shoot growth, during flowering, and as we get close to harvest. Botrytis is a dangerous pathogen as it can reduce both the quality and yield of your berries. Brown patches can be seen on the infected bushes. Management Make sure to give more space between branches for airflow. Applying fungicides that target botrytis pre-bloom and just before bunch codes are also good proactive tactics.

• Mummy Berry(Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi)

Fall of new leaves and shoots in spring; rapid browning of the upper surface of affected nodes and veins and midveins of leaves. Death of infected shoots, leaves, and flowers 24-72 hours after brown discoloration appears after the first symptoms in spring. The plants become asymptomatic until fruit development; infected berries are cream or pink in color and turn beige or gray; the berries become wrinkled and hard; the wrinkled skin of the fruit is broken off to expose the black rind of the fungal tissue. Management Plant dormant disease-free plants; remove or bury the mummified fruit; if you sow the fruit, cover it with at least an inch of soil; Application of appropriate foliar fungicides effectively controls the disease in commercial crops.

• Powdery Mildew(Erysiphe vaccinia)

White fluffy growth on the upper leaf surface or lower leaf surface; leaves may have a wrinkled appearance; leaves may develop chlorotic spots with red edges; leaves may fall off the plant. Management Plant tall varieties of blueberries that are resistant to plants; apply appropriate foliar fungicides, if available.

• Thrips (Frankliniella vaccinia)

The leaves wrap around the stem starting at the tip of the branch; as new leaves emerge, the loop extends from the end to the base of the stem; If the population is high, the leaves may be deformed; flowers can be damaged; the insect is tiny (1.5 mm) and slender and is best seen with a magnifying glass; adult thrips are pale yellow to light brown, and nymphs are smaller and lighter in color. Management Infested areas can be removed by pruning; in commercial plantations, registered insecticides can be very toxic to bees and should be applied in the evening when the bees are not actively flying.