This is my first year with 2 bushel and barrel blueberry bushes in pots. One (silver dollar I think) looks pretty good, but the other (jelly bean) looks like this. (I might have the varieties reversed-- my tags were moved).
Why do you think it’s so red and pale?
I used about the same soil mix on both. A bag of potting soil, some peat moss, some vermicompost, and some native muck. I added elemental sulfur when it first turned red in the spring. I added more when it seemed like it was definitely not going away with warmer weather.
Any recommendations for varieties for 7A that are fairly pH hardy and are still good producers? I already have Top Shelf, Powder Blue, Legacy, Elliott, Pink Lemonade, Ohlockonee, Brightwell, Duke, Reka, Blue Crop, and Blue Ribbon.
@Eme, it is still very early for me. Only on its second year so time will tell. It is growing quite well for me though so I expect to get some decent berries next year
I only recently learned that there are many different vaccinium varieties and I wonder how they taste compared with one another and if they can be interbred.
Even something like Nocturne blueberry doesn’t seem to have this in its heritage but I still wonder if the taste is similar
Although I didn’t get that specific species, I did get a bunch of seeds of native Vacciniums. I got Deerberry (V. stamineum), Sparkleberry (V. arboreum), Small Black Blueberry (V. tenellum), Elliott’s Blueberry (V. Elliottii), and Shiny Blueberry (V. myrsinites). Not all of them are really for eatting, but I like creating more diversity in my yard.
I don’t know if they all can be interbred, but they are definitely some hybrid Vacciniums out there.
Yeah, there’s a pretty staggering number of species, not to mention all the different huckleberries and such that are in other genera like Gaylussacia. Vaccinium as a genus is a bit of a mess, and it’ll probably get broken up in the near future from what I’ve read, potentially with some species getting put in related genera, some species in related genera moved over and some species split off into new genres.
I’m growing Vaccinium elliottii myself. The ones I have are ok, but there are some growing in a nearby park that are much larger and tastier, as well as some other wild blueberries of a species I haven’t ID’d. I’d like to steal some plant material or ideally root suckers from those better elliottii’s, but I don’t know that I will.
As for hybrids, I know some of these have been used in breeding the “southern highbush” group of cultivars. I don’t recall which species they used for that though, I believe it was several different ones. Vaccinium arboreum is a really cool one that unfortunately isn’t very palatable, but I’ve read someone managed to make a few crosses between it and other blueberries (after something like a few thousand hand pollinations, yikes).
I can definitely see the darrowii in my “Sunshine Blues”. They have the small leaves, similar leaf growth pattern and foliage color. They look more like my darrowii than my other Southern Highbushes.
I found deerberry and I actually like the taste. I think they may have been underripe, but they reminded me of a not so sour lime. The ones I found on the ground may have been bletted/ fermented and turned brown and those tasted really good!
Actually it was copied from namdhari plantations in himachal india .the idea was to compact the trees and take higher outputs just like hd apple trees but in bags ,and Namdhari’s have done it with heavy yields annually per year even 6 kg in compact spaces , with distance 3to 3 and 6 feet distance between rows , fully mulched the land with plastic mulches.
Persimmon grown there are basically fuyu , jiro for commercial farming none other than that .
