I’m located in 7b Alabama. Last year Climax was my sweetest tasting but you have to let them hang on the bush about a week or two after they darken. I covered them with a bird block and waited until they were ready. Climax will ripen most of its fruit simultaneously. My Pink Lemonade is good tasting but not the best and it has been a little erratic fruiting. My grands like it so it will always have a home.
2 Likes
Blueberries – Georgia's Integrated Cultivar Release System has Georgia releases of rabbiteye types. Titan, Vernon, and Krewer come closest to the size you requested. Isons nursery sells them at a fairly reasonable price. As others have said, you have the option of growing some of the northern highbush varieties. I donțt know enough about NHB to give a recommendation.
3 Likes
Im in Virginia, and I really am going to consider what they have said here today. I have already looked at some.
Maybe this is the case because it is in the proper zone creating better conditions and creating a better result? Maybe some of the recommended wouldn’t perform very well in your area not giving you the best fruit? what else are you growing?
Rabbiteyes are winners, hands-down here, just north of the TN line. Easily 10X more productive than the NHBs we had for the first 10 yrs or so here. No winter-kill, though the polar vortex deal back around 2014 killed all blooms…total crop on about 30 plants was 6 berries.
Don’t have a single NHB here anymore, and wont plant any - though they’re all the UKy extendion folks recommend
SHBs have been less than impressive, but they’re in a less hospitable spot, soilwise.
Long ago lost all IDs, so I couldn’t tell you which is which…have all the old standard REs…Climax, Delight, Woodard, Premier, etc., plus Brightwell and other newer ones whose variety names I’ve forgotten.
3 Likes
@juice
I’m currently growing.
Rabbit Eye
Climax: My favorite
Pink Lemonade
Tifblue: Mostly used as rootstock. Anyone grafting blueberries? Why?
Southern Highbush
Primadonna: Low vigor
Millennia: My best SH
Star: Low vigor
Oneal: Low vigor (great grafted onto Tifblue) Anyone grafting blueberries? Why?
2 Likes
Sweetcrisp?The patent states the plant will survive to 5F.This one may be a bit difficult to find and I recommend not purchasing from Florida Hill Nursery.bb
2 Likes
For me, the SHB I planted were in Texas and here in NC, they just require more soil prep to make things very acidic, or growing in large containers/raised beds. Rabbiteye grow easily with no soil prep pretty much, have high vigor, and easily ripen.
Many people say northern/southern varieties have better flavor, and while they are more sour (more potential flavor balance for western palette) rabbiteye can have good flavor as well and be quite sweet, the issue is just that you must let rabbiteye hang on the plant several days to about a week after turning blue to the eye before picking.
I’ve had 2 Pink Lemonade plants, one Texas, one here, for whatever reason they just seemed to lose vigor and get some kind of lesions and not grow back from the roots. They also would produce all of 3 berries each year when they weren’t trying to die on me.
In the end, though other blueberries might be better flavor to some, vigor, production amount, and soil prep have steered me away. I have a clay-based soil in both locations, so keep that in mind, it could be that you have an ideal soil for SHB or NHB blueberries.
2 Likes
I’m in 7b. I pulled all my rabbiteyes (including Climax) years ago, as they just didn’t have enough flavor for me. Tasted like store-bought berries. I now have only highbush, and the very best are O’Neal and Blueray, with the jury still out on Southern Sweetcrisp (definitely tasty but slow growing for me so far).
4 Likes
I used to grow about a dozen NHB varieties here in 7B Maryland.
Blueray was my clear favorite.
5 Likes
In my limited experience, Pink Lemonade doesn’t produce [much]. I’m in Silver Spring MD.
3 Likes
Over the past 10 years there are 4 days that went below 5F. Two where 4F, One 0F, and One -3F. These where the lowest. I think I will try it and maybe mulch with wood chips with some greens to heat it up before January. I don’t know maybe.
I was going to get a few Blueberry Bushes from Florida Hill. Is there something wrong with this place? I don’t know of there reputation
Yes, see I don’t really care about this sour, bitter, tart berries. I never ever really enjoyed a bitter blueberry. I had this saying that you needed to buy a pound of blueberries to get 12 sweet berries. I dislike tart berries. I find plenty of flavor in sweet berries and don’t need tartness for my taste buds.
I got clay too. 5-5.5 ph Im glad you can just drop rabbit eyes in it. I am however so very disappoint to hear about your pink lemonades. I will try it and see what it does.
I looked at Blueray on burpee. What makes it your favor
Can you describe what you mean by taste as it could mean a balance of tart and sweetness. I am after sweetness no tart.
If im not mistaken from what I read the grocery store blueberries are highbush mostly bred for production. What about the Blueray and oneal you like in its taste and growth
They have a super bad reputation for mislabeling their plants. Such as they sold dozens of plants as Sweet Crisp to many member here, and it was something else. It didn’t seem like an honest mistake as they refused to fix the problem with any customer.
As far as tartness, with many it’s just a matter of letting them ripen longer. They all taste fairly sweet if left to hang blue a month. The sweetest blueberries I have tasted are Toro, which can be tart if bad conditions. Cloudy, cold, rainy. The berries never sweeten up. The very sweetest for me has been Pink Popcorn. It has been sweet every year even bad ones. I grow only plants that are at least partial northern highbush. I’m not in a warm area. Although I like it! I tried sweet Crisp and gave up on it and all southerns. They bloom way too early for this zone. I tried to delay bloom but nothing worked. Other plants I could but not blueberries.
2 Likes
Kansas has alkaline soil but i mixed an area once with sulphur and grew blueberries after a year of bringing down the ph. Gooseberries are much sweeter in kansas than blueberry
1 Like
I remember big and sweet, no tart.
I do a taste test at work most years. I wait until everything is ripe then I take in every kind of blueberry I am growing at the time- not a lot but 4-6 varieties that have varied over the years. I usually try to bring in store-bought berries also. 90% of the time people tasting them all prefer O’Neal berries. They are very sweet and have such a bright flavor. I have heard many, many times people saying they couldn’t believe how good the berries tasted, that they didn’t know blueberries could taste like that. No one has ever not liked my O’Neal or blueray berries. Both are sweet but with a good blueberry flavor. But as everyone is pointing out, each spot is different. You just need to plant them and see what happens.
2 Likes
Maybe I should give O’Neal another try. Something like 20 years ago, I wasn’t happy with it…and my written notes were destroyed in a fire, so I don’t recall all the ‘why’.
Elliott is another that I avoid, too small for one thing. Legacy and Liberty are two I’d like to try, but haven’t.