My blueberries have strange looking bark. It looks like the bark is peeling. The branches have more “peeled” area than not. My blueberries are of various ages and various varieties. All Northern High Bush. I took a sample to a nursery today. They concluded it’s normal. They showed me that all their blueberries look like that. But this doesn’t look healthy to me.
I looked for pictures on the net. The closest I found was “stem blight”. But the other factors didn’t match. For example, I cut off a branch and it was a woody cream color inside as opposed to darker brown. The branches have green leaves, etc.
Does anyone know what this is? Is it really normal. Can I / Should I do anything about it?
Growing pains I hope. Some of my blueberry plants have split bark and I just attributed it to rapid growth. Your plants don’t exactly look like the ones I have so it could be something else.
This thread is a bit old, but still a good topic. Hopefully, I can add some pertinent info for future readers. Although, blueberry plants can shed the very outer portion of their bark without consequence, this doesn’t seem to be the case here. And that shedding usually will not happen on young, green bark, but only on the papery bark of older stems. Various small animals can gnaw at the bark, especially on the younger green ones. I believe this condition is what is actually being shown in the picture. My guess is that slugs or snails are doing this at night. Even rodents can and will chew on the bark, although that is rare with blueberries and often usually only at the base if it occurs at all. If you have blueberry plants that look like this, I would go out very early in the morning and see if it isn’t slugs gnawing away.
Keeping slugs away from plants is actually fairly easy. First go out very early in the morning and pick off any slugs on the plant so they can’t hide during the day. Use copper sulfate at a rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon of water, and LIGHTLY spray a circle around the plant on the ground about one foot away from the plant. Avoid spraying it on the plant itself. If you do, wash it off. The circle will keep slugs away for about a month. Follow all safety precautions when using copper sulfate. It is considered an organic compound, but still can be poisonous if mishandled.
