North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["kieran or donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

Yeah, Lucky,  I just found out that we in the "frozen north" of Tennessee
are considered borderline for rabbiteye blueberries.  I went digging around
to find out something about this O'Neal blueberry that a local nursery sold
me, and that's how I found out about the "Southern Highbush" that are
crosses of northern highbush and rabbiteye.  There is an Ark state site
talking about 2 vars they have that bloom and crop earlier than the
rabbiteyes, but still make it through the late freezes when the rabbiteyes
lose all their crop.  Here's the site:
http://www.aragriculture.org/horticulture/fruits_nuts/Blueberries/default.htm#Arkansas%20Varieties
I did notice another site that said the southern highbush were no more
resistant to heat than the northern vars, so I'm gonna have to do a bit more
research before I actually order any.  I have lost my crop to late freezes,
and didn't like that one bit.
    While on the subject of blueberries, I was talking to Hector Black in
the fall and asked it he knew of anyone who actually produced crops on their
grafts of blueberry on deerberry or farkelberry.  He thought about it and
said, no he couldn't think of any.  I talked to Mike Cartright recently and
he told me he had such a plant, that it was 4" thick at the graft union and
cropped like crazy.  He said it was a nice way to get a single stem
blueberry plant.  I don't know which he has his grafted on, whatever grows
around Evergreen AL.  I don't know which one we have here, but there are
sure a ton of them on our property and I know they are graft compatible,
because I made a graft about 3 yrs ago and it's still alive and even bloomed
a little.  It hasn't grown because of the pines and elms around it, but I
can sure fix that, and I can graft on some bigger plants.  Sounds like a fun
project.