I bought a box of blueberry from Costco yesterday. $3.89 for 18 OZ, very large size and excellent taste. The fruits look and taste very fresh. It’s said on the box the fruits were produced in Peru.
Peru should be in Winter now, how did it produce blueberries so recently?
What kind of blueberry is it? I will definitely replace my 2 blueberry trees with this very large size fruit one.
Are you sure they didn’t slip you plums instead.
Yep, the largest ones are plum size.
Could be Chandlers, or I forget the other large common variety. Darrow?
Check the latitude.
Somehow stores have figured out that growing in Peru and Growing in America (namely California) give a all year food source or a good portion of the year food source. Given that California has nearly every kind of place to grow anything depending on where they grow I would assume Peru must be the same way (some being mountainous and some plains and some beach). Growth and taste of fruit is heavily based on variety. The first year I ever tried growing anything but squash I tried growing blackberries. I was likely just a teenager so my mom and I headed to Home Depot to buy blackberry plants. During this time I did no research on plant varieties. The blackberries growing on it were so small that I got disappointed and stopped watering them so they eventually surname to death. This year I bought Prime Arch Freedom 45 blackberries from Raintree after seeing a video on wild vs actually grown blackberries. The blackberries growing on the canes are as big if not bigger than grocery store blackberries. I believe they are rated as large too. What I would do it go on Nourse Farms and look at blueberry varieties that are rated as large with excellent flavor.
After some research, Peru does produce blueberries in August. Generally the season starts at end of August in some regions and the peak is around December/ January.
The cultivar is likely OZblu, a very recent commercial breed from Australia. It also sets world record for blueberry in terms of size.
It sounds like that one would be a challenge to obtain in the US…
could try growing out the seeds.
do blueberries grow true from seed
No, they’re cross pollinated. They won’t be true from seed.
How would one control the pollen parent to that degree though?
I’d additionally wonder about anything imported and whether or not it was irradiated… And in turn if that prevents or limits germination.
An article I found discussing that:
Unless I’m mistaken even self pollinated fruits like peaches don’t come true from seed.
I may have misunderstood what you meant by “cross pollination”. I thought you meant that pollen from “different” blueberry varieties (cultivars?) pollinated the plants which produced the berries imported here. But yeah I realize that even if an OZblu pollinated an OZblu that may not mean the child will be identical. I at least googled “blueberry heterozygous homozygous” and didn’t find anything definitive.
Interesting that you used peaches in your example, they’re something most agree are fairly close to “true to seed”. Pretty sure I’ve read on this forum they tend to “self pollinate” before the bloom fully opens. As compared to apples which are “extremely heterozygous”, tending to vary sometimes greatly from either parent.
Thanks.
I don’t know that I see any advantage to having blueberries that big. I don’t want tiny ones but so long as they are decent size flavor is more important to me.
Blueberries are typically self fertile. I suppose what you mean true from seed may very. If I grow a zucchini plant I assume I will get a certain kind of zucchini from it. If I grow a peach and control the pollination to itself I still assume there is going to be some variation weather it be size, taste or peach fruit size etc. A apple is just a different breed of cat all together. It will grow similar but not the same. First you need two different varieties and even once fully grown you may just get a crabapple from a good apple tree. I hear you can eat crabapples but the birds and squirrels in this area seem to get them before us. Not the case with apples here. Apples are smaller than grocery stores in most cases here (maybe due to variety?) but are never eaten by birds like crabapples.
Lovell rootstock seeds can be purchased. I believe they are not cloned but produced from seed. I have heard the heirlooms can be very close if not identical. Like Indian blood cling and other cling peaches.
I myself believe Indian Free is probably a seedling and not the original. Which is one of the first hybrids. I think of Indian blood cling. I have noticed for a peach it is very receptive of grafts.
Most peaches are hard to graft to.
The area of Peru where these blueberries are grown is very low chill. Huge caution that growing out the seed will probably produce plants that are adapted to Florida and parts further south.
Look at Raven blueberry for an example. Blueberry | Florida Foundation Seed Producers, Inc.
When I was in Hawaii, they had huge blueberries, maybe the size of a quarter, then I found out they came from California.
