Blueberry garden / Vaccinium corymbosum - a species of deciduous shrubs from the genus Vaccinium of the Heather family (Ericaceae). The plant is grown as a fruit (for the sake of edible berries), as well as an ornamental.
High blueberry is a perennial, deciduous shrub with a height and crown diameter of about 2 m.
The root system is fibrous, densely branched, located in a soil layer 40 cm deep, and has no root hairs. It feeds on endophytic mycorrhiza. Roots begin to grow in spring when soil temperatures reach 5°C, often coinciding with bud swelling. The root grows until the end of spring, and then its growth stops. In autumn, root growth resumes between harvest and leaf fall, until the temperature drops to 5°C.
Branches 3-4 cm in diameter or more, strongly branched, strong. The stems are straight, annually elongated due to new apical shoots. Over time, older shoots die off and are replaced by younger ones growing from the root collar. Does not form underground shoots and does not grow with rhizomes. Young shoots are slightly ribbed, shiny or matte. Their color varies from bright green to light brown. Vegetative growth begins in spring with bud swelling. During the season, shoots can have from one to several growth waves. In the first period of growth, the shoots grow very quickly, then growth stops, and the apical buds become underdeveloped. After 1-2 weeks, the apical bud continues to grow again.
In the middle of summer, several buds at the end of a new shoot form into flowering ones. Bud formation starts from the top of the shoot and continues down. Flower buds are spherical, much larger than growth buds, their number on one shoot does not exceed 4. As a rule, there is always 1 apical bud and 1-3 lateral ones, each of which contains from 5 to 10 potential flowers. Growth buds are small, oblong, pointed, located along the entire length of the shoots and in the axils of the leaves.
The leaves are simple, large, elliptical or oval, dark green, smooth, shiny, adjacent, on short petioles, up to 8 cm long, 4 cm wide, with entire edges or serrated; young leaves are bright green, in autumn the foliage becomes scarlet.
Blooms in May. Racemes are located at the ends of the shoots. The apical clusters open earlier than the lateral ones. Buds are pinkish white. The flowers are bell-shaped, with 4-5 recurved teeth, white or pale pink, up to 1 cm long, with a double perianth. Corolla sympetalous. On average, there are 8-10 flowers in racemes. Pollination occurs with the help of insects.
Fruits - juicy light blue, blue or dark blue berries with a bluish bloom up to 2.5 cm in diameter, containing small seeds. In shape, they are rounded, sometimes pentagonal, flattened. Ripe fruits retain the calyx. As with other types of vaccinium, highbush blueberry is characterized by endozoochory - such seed dispersal, in which animals (in the case of this species, birds and mammals, including bears) eat the fruit as a whole, and the seeds inside them, passing through the digestive tract, are outside along with excrement.
The taste of fruits is the characteristic taste of blueberries, but sweeter (in cultivated varieties). The pulp is white, dense or medium density, the berries do not stain the hands in the manner characteristic of blueberries. From the bush you can collect up to 10 liters of berries.
Blueberries are grown both in household plots and industrial plantations for their dark blue fruits, which are edible both fresh and processed. The yield in the homeland of the plant, in North America, reaches 10 kg per bush, in the conditions of the Moscow region - 3 kg per bush. Industrial plantations of this species are currently found in the USA, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The berry is rapidly replacing wild blueberries from the market in Scandinavia. Berries are also used for medicinal purposes due to their high antioxidant properties. For medicinal purposes, they were used by the local population in the pre-Columbian era.
This type of vaccinium is also grown as an ornamental plant. The plant looks especially beautiful in autumn, when the leaves turn red.
Growing blueberries with seeds.
Seeds are sown in late autumn in pre-prepared, sour peat-filled and fertilized ridges. For spring sowing, seeds are stratified within 3 months. Sow seeds in grooves, to a depth of 1 cm, the bottom of which is slightly compacted with a board. The seeds are covered with a substrate of sand with peat in a ratio of 3: 1. Seeds germinate well at a soil temperature of 23-25 C and a soil moisture content of about 40% of the soil weight. Seedling care consists in constant loosening of the soil, weeding, moisturizing watering. To adjust the growth of seedlings in the second year, starting in spring, they are fed with nitrogen fertilizers. For 2 years, seedlings are grown at the place of sowing. Then they are dug up and planted for rearing in the school, where they are given a large feeding area. Grown seedlings after 1-2 years are transplanted to a permanent place in the garden, but at the same time it would be good to conduct a preliminary individual selection of promising seedlings at the school for productivity and other characteristics.
The location for planting blueberries is better to choose open, well-lit places.
The soil for growing blueberries should be: breathable, acidic, loose, peaty-sandy. Gardeners who do not take this into account and plant blueberries in heavy clay soil are not satisfied with the growth and development of plants. The optimum level of standing groundwater is 40-60 cm from the earth's surface. Under the condition of gradual and frequent watering, groundwater can be much deeper. The main thing, however, is the presence of acidic soil (pH in the range of 3.8–5). Favorable soil conditions can be judged by indicator plants, such as horsetail, sorrel, mint. To accurately determine the level of acidity, it is better to get a special device - a pH meter, or, if possible, conduct a laboratory study of the soil. Planting "by eye" often leads to failure. Even at a pH of about 6, blueberries grow slowly, not to mention neutral, and even more so alkaline soil.
If the soil on the site is the most common, that is, not acidic, then 5-6 buckets of soil are taken out of the planting pit 0.5-0.6 m deep and 1 m in diameter, the pit is isolated with boards, polyethylene or pieces of tin and filled with acid peat. If there is not enough peat, they add (no more than a third of the total mass) sawdust, wood chips, bark, and even better - partially rotted pine-spruce needles from the nearest forest. Good results are obtained by growing blueberries exclusively in a substrate of rotted sawdust. With a thick layer (7-15 cm) of the same sawdust, wood chips or sphagnum moss, it is useful to mulch the soil even after planting, which helps to retain moisture and inhibits the development of weeds. There is another option for acidifying the soil: a year before planting, powdered sulfur is put into it (250 g per 1 m3 of land) or mineral fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, urea, potassium sulfate, nitroammophoska are applied. The first two for each square meter add no more than 20 g, the last - half as much. The main thing is not to overdo it with doses.
There are many recipes for planting blueberries, but the easiest and cheapest is to bring sawdust, let it rot, lay it in a garden with a layer of 40-50 cm, or form a comb and plant blueberry bushes in it every 80-90 cm in a row and every 2 m between rows.
When cultivating the soil, it must be taken into account that the root system is superficial and is located in the 15-centimeter upper soil layer. Therefore, plants are very responsive to annual mulching with peat up to 5 cm thick, nitrogen fertilization and watering. Blueberries respond well to the annual early spring formation of a bush: cutting old branches at the level of the soil surface, cutting weak coppice shoots, as well as rejuvenation in the crown for perennial wood, sanitary pruning, etc. When rejuvenating pruning of old branches for reverse growth near the soil surface, annual coppice shoots are formed - the so-called formation shoots, the size of which reaches 0.5-1 m. Branching shoots formed on perennial branches in the crown zone slightly differ in their growth and are equal to 9-10 cm.
