My Climax rabbiteye put on a lot of growth this year.
Jersey northern highbush grew pretty good too.
Northcountry also put on a respectable amount of growth, especially for a Minnesota-bred bloob.
Legacy might be dead or dying. It appears to have been eaten and defoliated by bugs! Crazy.
Yes bizarre! I was impressed with how it’s fruit buds grew after being frozen, so don’t give up on it yet. Spray it maybe, and next year hit it after harvest. I had little growth on my plants this year. I lost Southmoon as it came out of dormancy early. I really wanted this one, but I’m not replacing it with another. Sweetcrisp was hit hard too, came out of dormancy early and the main cane was injured, not growing well, I removed dead or injuryed canes… It struggled all summer, and now looks better but is smaller, as many of the canes and foliage was damaged. It’s going on 4th leaf and no fruit yet, so it looks like this cultivar is not adaptable to my area. Maybe if it was in ground it would do better? I replaced Southmoon with a very hardy cultivar, Pink Popcorn. It is the 2nd pink cultivar to make it to distribution. It’s lighter than Pink Lemonade, can even be white or off white and ripe. Hardy to zone 3 developed in the north. It supposed to have better production than Pink Lemonade. 5x5 at maturity. I have to grow in a container, and this is making it difficult to mange. I should probably put them in root pouches. Last winter I had a yellow cap raspberry in a root pouch and left it outside all winter, it was fine, produced a huge crop. If I have problems this winter, I will try it with the blueberries in 2017-18 winter.
I’m storing them in the shed this winter instead of the garage, hoping to stop any early growing by keeping them colder. See how it goes…
I think it is time to reawaken this thread from its long winter slumber.
My Misty are starting to turn blue. And I saw the first berry on one of my 2 Indigo Crisps turning blue as well, so hopefully I’ll get enough to determine whether to keep them. They are young plants but seem pretty productive, with at least double (maybe triple) the fruit set of my significantly larger Sweetcrisp. But it seemed like people weren’t as excited about the Indigos as they expected to be once they got a taste.
How are other folks “crisps” shaping up this year?
This year I am pleasantly surprised that Legacy did not die, and continues to putter on.
The “pruning” the bugs afforded it last year may have actually stimulated it.
I’ve heard that Indigocrisp was inferior compared to Springhigh/Sweetcrisp. Is that true?
So far IC hasn’t been good. But this yr mine was over cropped and didn’t grow much foliage. That’s a recipe for poor fruit on any variety. Last yr it was just a little plant. Next yr will be it’s last unless it improves. I’ll thin or whatever it takes to assure it’s not over set.
My Springhigh this yr was very sweet. I dried several lbs and those were spectacular. Sweetcrisp was it’s usual crisp ultra sweet berry.
I’m still surprised there aren’t more Sweetcrisp reports.
I have two blueberry plants that have been in the ground for 4-5 years now. I’ve long since lost the tags and I’m not sure which is which. One was blue ray and the other was bluecrop. The smaller of my two plants produce larger sweeter berries while the large bush produces smaller less sweet berries. Anyone have an idea what the variety the larger sweeter berry is?
Blueray tends to have long,gangly canes,with fruit growing on the ends. Brady
I’m not sure that I can say either of mine have long gangly canes. While both are healthy one has definitely grown better than the other. The smaller plant with larger berries had them totally stripped by some animal. I assume birds. The larger bush is ripening later and unless I cover it I probably won’t get many berries from it either. I never had anything touch blueberries at my old house but here in the newer one I’ve had them hit both years.
Sweetcrisp is a 10 out of 10, not much more to discuss. it is my favorite SHB and second favorite blueberry after Darrow.
Thank you for your input. What is it about Darrow that you like so much, the flavor?
I had a few dozen berries from my 2 Indigo Crisp plants this year. I actually found them pretty good, but definitely a bit different to other blueberries since they don’t have as much of the blueberry taste, mostly just sweet. My youngest daughter had one and said, “this tastes like a water melon”, which actually seemed pretty accurate. It was crisp and sweet and while blueberryish, did also have some taste of watermelon to it. Without much tart, I found that I could eat them well before they were fully blue and actually liked the flavor better then, unlike other varities I needed to let hang. Nice, but I’m not sure it warrants making a lot of effort to grow them.
Which is actually where I’m starting to come down to with all my blueberries. I’ve also got Misty and Sunshine, which are nice, reasonably productive, but I’m not really convinced they are better than what I can get at the store during the time that they ripen. Sweetcrisp was great… the few berries I got from the plant. It is just so much less productive for me than my other plants that I feel like I’d have to grow a half dozen of just that variety to get enough to do much with.
All my blue berry plants are currently in pots and I moved them into my screened in porch to keep the birds and chipmunks from stripping them. Even netting is tough, since the chipmunks just dig under the nets. Maybe the fact that the screen cuts some of the light impacted sweetness on the other varieties?
I’ve added a couple Cara’s Choice and hopefully will get a taste of those next year to see if they are as good as folks say. I know they aren’t super productive, but hopefully they’ll out produce Sweetcrisp.
But depending on how that goes, I may just drop the blueberries from what I grow and add more black currants and figs instead. I have very little space and it just seems to make sense to focus on growing things that are either dramatically better than what they have in stores or, like figs and currants, aren’t even available locally.
Or maybe I’m just doing something wrong with the way I grow them and not getting the best taste from my varieties.
Makes sense…!! I will say that my blueberries are far better than anything I’ve bought in the store or picked at blueberry farms. All the same they are a lot of work and trouble for the amount of fruit one gets. Figs are easier to grow and far more productive.
Great blueberry year for me in Z7 MD. These are by far my three favorite berries I’ve ever tasted. When fully ripe all three are terrific. The sweetcrisp are very sweet and super crunchy. So different, which I enjoy, and they are ripe early at about the same time as my blueray.
Left to right and top to bottom- Southern sweetcrisp, O’Neal, blueray.
I like the large UFO shaped firm berries and the tartness. The variety does very well in my 7b location, pretty much set it and forget it.
my top 5
Darrow
Sweetcrisp
Springhigh
Jersey
Liberty ( my latest ripening variety)
I grow Bluray, Jewel, Duke, Northland, Bluecrop, Pink Lemonade and Berkley aswell.
Thanks for your repot Mike. That’s encouraging. I forgot about O’Neal but had wanted to try that as well.
Are your berries all in the ground or do you keep them in pots. I wasn’t sure whether putting sweetcrisp and O’neal in the ground here in the Mid-Atlantic works.
The only one of these I have tried is Oneal and it sweet and very good. I’m sure the others are also excellent. I have pushed Oneal because it isn’t patented so it has worked well with my blueberry grafting project.
