The most important factor in growing blueberry is the drainage. All blueberry needs is good drainage and a couple inches of good compost mulch. I also spread some sulfur (for plants), but have not used it for the past a couple of years. I’d also spread a cup of slow release organic fertilizer like garden-tone or so in spring time.
The mature blueberry bush needs to be renewed each year. Find the oldest cane and cut it down to the ground. I’ll renew about 1/5 of them. So for one with 10 canes, I’ll cut down 2 of them and train two new canes.
Sometimes mature plants send suckers several inches away from the crown. I was able to save two large suckers with very good roots. Another was too brittle to save. Too close to the crown.
I did our Jersey last season. I only left 1 or 2 canes on all of them and they grew huge new canes…healthy blueberry plants can regenerate new growth very easily.
By ‘save’ do you mean you cut out the sucker and grew it in a new spot? I have seen a number of such suckers out of my Duke, but have never attempted to harvest one. What do you do to pull that off?
You have to make sure that the sucker can be separated safely with pieces of roots. Some suckers are just branches that come out of the crown and you can’t separate it with roots. Then that will fail.
It’s fun, and yes we are all still learning. I killed 5 blueberry plants so far.
I was happy about it as I figured out why. I hate when I lose a plant and don’t know what I did wrong? I lost two from having too low a pH. After killing them from high pH you usually will lose the next ones from a low pH. What happened to me. Live and learn! Sulfur amounts is not always easy. And you won’t know for a year or so!
As far as I know, with our natural soil slightly acidic, mature plants do not really require sulfur every year. When the plants are young, they may turn yellow. I lose some plants due to poor drainage, not because of PH.
Great! I just follow you. I don’t know what and how you do things, I just hang around you. The guys on these B/B posts are also experience, they have some nice looking tree’s WITH berries.
ammonium nitrate is a unique nitrogenous salt because(apart from being used as explosive, which is itself intriguing) both the cation and anion components of the salt will provide absorbable nitrogen, but only has minimal acidifying effect. For alkaline soils, ammonium sulfate is the best option, since blueberries supposedly prefer ammonia-based nitrogen, and the sulfate portion acidifies.
sulfur is the main cause of acid rain, so if there might be an agricultural benefit to burning fossil fuels it would be for growing blueberries, rhododendrons, and gardenias
There have been several threads in the past discussing ammoium SULFATE for blueberries. Easy to get, to use and cheap too. Never heard of using ammonium NITRATE for blueberries.
I just planted 2 blueberries and replanted another due to poor performance. Soil in the raised bed is mostly peat moss, compost and a touch of native soil. I also added 3 pounds of holly tone, hope I didn’t over do it
A touch, I guess one pound for each plant. I like to go light on fertilizer until mid summer after newly transplanted plants are a little more settled in. And probably a 1/2 pound per plant at most spread out along the dripline. You can still burn plants with organic fertilizer. But I think you should be OK
I add sulfur to my beds every other year, sometimes chelated iron too. This year just sulfur, as pH is pretty good. I will test once a month to see how the pH is doing. Usually I only test once, but when adding sulfur I like to monitor it. I have lowered the pH too much before, so I feel one needs to keep track when adding sulfur. If it gets to low I will flush well at each watering with tap water to increase pH.
It’s not easy to add the correct amount of sulfur. You do not need that much.
Drew how do you test your pH? I am familiar with wide range pH Hach electronic probes and the “manual” indicator solution kits with a dropper for water quality, but I don’t have a background testing soil. I’ve seen those $10 dual “probe” electronic sensors you stick in the ground on Amazon, is there a more effective or more economical way?
You really cannot test soil. What I do is use commercial plastic test strips. Used in industry and are extremely accurate. I bury the strip in the soil and water with distilled water which is neutral I leave it there about 10 minutes. Some make a solution in glass. So you are testing the hydrogen ions that entered the neutral water. Try to get it about 5.0 it may not be that accurate so could be 4.5 to 5.5 this whole range is acceptable. As you can see mine read lower. It works!
Many places make these test strips. I use this brand. I lost other links when I switched computers. My hard drive crashed and I had everything but my bookmarks backed up.
Here is one place, you may find others on Amazon. https://krackeler.com/catalog/product/6272/MColorpHast-Premium-pH-Strips
I like the 4-7 range as it makes it easy to see. 7 is way over so I don’t need to know if it’s really 8 or 9 and anything below 4.0 is too acidic!
In this example I’m about as low as you want! Looks about 4.5pH
Are not these easy to read!?
With new or young blueberry plants, you do want them to grow the first year, not crop much if any. So, cutting the oldest limb even on a young plant can help it’s vigor.
Too much fertilizer will push growth, but reduce fruit (limit next years fruit buds).
(And too much or wrong fertilizer can even kill a plant…just adding mulch can go a long ways.)
(If I get a new plant, especially if growing in a pot, I do let it bear a few berries the first year…as I’m always eager to try the new variety.) (This year I’ll be getting to sample Chandler for first time…but the new rabbiteye plants I got from Indiana Berry are definitely too small to bloom this spring.)
