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["JPitts" <thepitts AT localnet.com>]

most likely your bushes have peaked, being that they are that old it would 
probable be hard to identify the variety and maybe even harder to 
replace.....however you should be able to salvage sprouts for transplanting, 
I too have six bushes that are about 30 years old and am just beginning to 
see some dying occur, next season I will begin transplanting sprouts and in 
years past I have given sprouts to half a dozen people and they have had a 
real good survival rate....in the fall or spring will be a good time for 
this but even now I can see a dozen or more sprouts under my bushes, check 
your bushes and see if you too have some, and if you do just take a shovel 
and cut shovel deep at a slight inward angle toward roots 12 to 14 inches 
from, and all around sprout and then using shovel lift sprout, root ball and 
all and place in a previously prepared hole, remember to wait until sap is 
down before doing this. good luck


From: "EarthNSky" <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
To: "Homestead List" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 12:02 PM
Subject: [Homestead] Blueberry bushes


> When I moved here, I acquired a monster patch of blueberry bushes.  It
> looks like there were originally 6 bushes, but each has put out so many
> new canes that they had all grown together into a thicket.  The thicket
> was about 12-15 feet tall, 15-20 feet wide and 25 feet long.  The
> arrangement was like a 6 on a die.  I have no idea of what variety they
> are, but there are at least 2 varieties. This thicket was what sold me
> on the property as the bushes were loaded the day I first stepped foot
> on the place.  I've been very protective of the thicket-no spraying,
> only a bit of goat barn mulch around the base, but nothing in the last 5
> years. In talking to my neighbor whose family owned this land, she says
> the blueberries were planted in the mid 1960's, making them 40+ years
> old now.
>
> A few years ago, I noticed that some canes were dying, and I began to
> cut out the dead ones.  It seems like the more I cut, the more that
> died.  I never saw signs of disease or fungus, the canes just died en
> masse a few each year.  Now, after 11 years here, I only have 3 of the
> original 6 bushes-really 2.5 as I can see more canes dead and dying.  It
> is still as tall, maybe 12 feet, but we just pull the canes down and
> what we can't reach is bird food.  Before we moved here, they backed a
> truck into the thicket and picked from the bed of the truck.
>
> I've been reading up on the lifespan of blueberries, and I see
> everything from 20-60 years, making my thicket hit dead center of the
> lifespan.  Is there some weird disease affecting my bushes or do you
> think they are just spent and dying of old age?
>
> I've tried multiple times to get cuttings and root them, and have been
> unsuccessful.  This past winter I did keep one alive, but it drowned in
> the Spring rains.  I have, however, begun to buy replacement plants
> which I have planted away from the thicket just in case it really is
> some disease.
>
> B
> --
> "Never expect magic from no where"  Baringo (Kenyan) working motto
> http://erthnsky.blogspot.com/
> EarthNSky Farm, NW Georgia, USA
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