Gorgeous blueberries! Are these the tifblue?
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I’m also in the NC Piedmont and grow blue Tifblue, Premier, Climax, Brightwell, Yadkin, Titan and Krewer. Yadkin is my favorite for flavor and Krewer and Titan for size. The others are very similar to each other except in terms of ripening time. Premier and Climax are early, then Brightwell, Yadkin, Krewer, Titan are a little later followed by Tifblue. I have too many to water the plants thoroughly through the summer. I think that’s the main reason I would rank Tifblue behind the others for flavor and fruit quality since they ripen as it’s usually heating up. I also grafted SHB (ONeal) and NHB (Reka) to Tifblue rootstock, and that gives me even earlier berries. On their own roots they barely grew in the same soil that the rabbiteyes thrive.
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@Regenerative_Andrew … yes.
Below is what my tifblue looked like a week or so ago. It is loaded this year again.
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I would recommend buying from a local nursery over mail order if you can. You’re more likely to get larger plants for a cheaper price that way. I can recommend places in Greensboro/High Point, but you probably have even closer options.
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Does anyone have a resource for size comparison between varieties? How much larger is titan, say, than a tifblue?
Thanks everyone for your input!
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Climax berries are a little larger and earlier than tifblue. I have 2 very nice sized climax bushes.
We love em.
Plants should be planted in raised beds with added pine fines and peat moss and mulched heavily.
We have drip irrigation on our 2 acres of Blueberries. Once they get started you may get by without the water but the irrigation provides maximum production and quality.
Bill Cline explains the major points in his publications and videos.
Some of your questions can probably be best answered by planting a bunch of varieties at your location.
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Hi Andrew, I don’t have any scientific data on the relative size of Titan vs. Tifblue or others, but you could search for that in the academic literature. I can tell you that berry size is highly variable and often corresponds to the productivity of the bush. If there is a lot of fruit on the bush, each berry tends to be smaller. In years where late frosts have thinned the flowers, the silver lining of a smaller crop is larger and sweeter berries. Even Tifblue fruit can be a good size in those circumstances, but for me in general it tends to have larger crops of lower quality berries than the other rabbiteyes I grow. I suspect if I watered my blueberries, then the Tifblue would be more like the others. Like @blueberrythrill noted, bigger isn’t always better if the fruit is ripening in rainy weather and splits. As he suggested, the best way to get a good blueberry crop every year is to plant more varieties and spread your blooming and ripening times out over a longer period of time so you aren’t as sensitive to the unpredictable NC Piedmont weather. Which rabbiteye cultivar is best has more to do with the weather in a given growing season than it does with any inherent qualities of that cultivar. They are all much more similar to each other than cultivars of figs or apples, for example. I think the most significant difference between different rabbiteye cultivars is in terms of ripening time.
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Do not be afraid to try Darrow Blueberries. Very large berries. Very productive. Very easy and resistant. They are our wild blueberry. Used to create quite a few Southern Highbush varieties.
They are dwarfing though. Rarely over 2 feet tall. Great for large planters.
I think the variety is Darrow’s Blueberry,different from the Darrow Blueberry,which is a northern highbush.
Wow those plants are loaded, I’m not a fan of blueberries but my wife loves them and buy them weekly when they’re in season. I may have to plant a couple of them for her next Spring.
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@Fishsauce … the only negative for me with blueberries is… the birds love them.
I have found them easy to grow, low maintenance, no spray… which I really like.
But when the clusters start ripening… the birds start eating them or pecking them … wrecking the fruit.
A blueberry really needs to hang on to the cluster 4 or 5 days or more…after it turns blue… to get nice and ripe… peak flavor and sweetness.
The birds do not respect that at all… as soon as they turn blue… they attack them.
I have to bag mine (various size organza bags) to keep the birds at bay. It is a little extra trouble… and like I said… the only negative to blueberries to me.
TNHunter
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I have 4 raised bed that are totally protect by birds netting. Two of them are taken up by Joan J raspberries, and I just planted 4 varieties of tomatoes in the other two beds. I’m gonna reserved one of the beds next year for blueberries. What varieties do you recommend?
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@Fishsauce … I started my first 3 blueberries 12 years ago… 2 climax and 1 tifblue.
TN Ag recommended rabbiteyes for my location and these varieties were listed.
I have others too… younger… powderblue, brightwell… that produce smaller crops.
My older tifblue and climax bushes are 7 ft tall x 5 ft wide now and produce hundreds of berries each.
Climax is a bit earlier than tifblue and produces a slightly larger berry. They both taste very good. Definately better than store bought berries.
I have heard from others here that Yadkin is a very good tasting rabbiteye. I may try them in my new orchard.
TNHunter
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Hmmm, but what if you graft them to a larger bush like V. elliottii or V. arboretum? I kind of want to try that now just to see what will happen.
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An interesting thought!
I’m going to try and get arboreum next spring, if I do, I’ll grab a Darrow’s as well if I don’t get one sooner.
V. darrowii have really small berries, like the size of an eraser on the back of a pencil. They also have really small leaves that make close up photos of them look like a regular sized berry. One of my prettiest edibles and was loaded with flowers this year despite not having a buddy to pollinate it. They are evergreen here too.
“Vernon, Titan, Krewer, and Brightwell would be my choices if planting rabbiteye varieties”
Really helpful to boil it down like this to a Core Four RE. I’ve seen this same core before but with Alapaha or Premier on the early end and Ochlockonee on the late end. Are they redundant with your Core Four?
Update: Internet says Vernon has longer shelf life than earlier varieties (meaning Premier, Alapaha maybe?). So that’s one reason to start with Vernon.
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