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market-farming - Re: Blueberry culture

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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Blueberry culture
  • Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 09:10:02 -0500


I don't think there is any reliable information on hardy blueberries growing
in neutral soils. Rabbiteye blueberries can grow in neutral soil but they
are southern berries and wouldn't be hardy in Illinois, much less Wisconsin.
You'll need a low pH to get good growth.

Coniferous bark and pine needles are both acid-forming but blueberries like
a fine mulch too. If you can find a sawmill that cuts a lot of pine and get
some aged sawdust, it is and excellent mulch for blueberries, Just put a
healthy layer of the sawdust down and then cover with the pine needles.

Actually, elemental sulfur shouldn't be expensive at all. At least it isn't
around here. If you're changing the pH of your soil you'll want to test at
least once/year till it seems to stabilize. You might want to consider using
ammonium sulfate to fertilize for nitrogen and to help keep pH down. pH
should really be down between 4.5 and 5.2 for blueberries.

You might also want to set up drip irrigation on them. Blueberries are as
responsive to irrigation as any crop I've ever worked with. It'll pay for
itself in berry number, berry size and plant vigor.

Bill Shoemaker
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
Univ of Illinois - St Charles Hort Research Center

>The soil is about the highest fertility soil on our farm and is a heavy
clay
>loam (Fayette) for the most part. The area with the blueberries does have
>pretty good topsoil due to the location. The pH is just under 7 in this
area
>and has good trace minerals except low on B. We put some elemental sulfur
>in the soil prior to planting the original plants and this time put on some
>boxes of a pelleted S (little flat disks) but based on the recommendations
>for a clay loam soil, we did not put on enough. Do any of you folks have
good soil that you are trying to >acidify and what do you do? How much do
you put on, etc?
>Also, has anyone tried to use pine needles or other coniferous material to
>help drop the pH? Source of materials? How about coniferous bark.
>Finally, I recall reading something a number of years ago about the fact
>that blueberries actually can do very well in neutral pH soil if they are
in
>a high organic matter type soil with excellent nutrient availabilty. I have
>never been able to find that information and wonder if it is factual. I
have
>talked with extension folks and they have no idea about such a neutral pH
>being successful.






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