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  • From: Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] blueberries and grafting
  • Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 17:46:22 -0400

First of all I'll address the question about blueberries.  I don't think Tophat is a great choice except when a primary motive is for ornament.  It has OK fruit, but small and unexceptional.  IMO any blueberry planting with more than 3 plants has to have Elliot in the mix to help extend the season.  All by itself it adds almost a month of later blueberries for me. 

Also, I prefer to grow the varieties with largest fruit, picking them is time consuming enough even when the fruit are half the size of grapes.  Lowbush is another story, of course, but I assume that harvesting with a rake is pretty darn quick.  Folks in Main always say they're the best and I guess I'll just give it to them- not much other fruit they can crow about.

Varieties I like are Berkley, Bluecrop, Duke, Bonus and a few others who's  names escape me at the moment.  Darrow has exceptional flavor, probably because it sets so few fruit.

On grafting, last year I took scion wood from trees already budding out though not the buds on the wood I used.  It grew exceptionally well and I think that the scion generates callous while it is leafing out.  You just don't want it leafing out before it has enough callous to assure it gets some water.  In other words the buds shouldn't be showing growth when you graft because that just won't give the scion enough time to hook up before dehydrating.  Of course conditions vary and if there isn't much evaporation ocuring because of weather conditions or in a greenhouse a wider range of survival would be likely.













  • [NAFEX] blueberries and grafting, Alan Haigh, 04/09/2010

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