Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Native Plants
If you're planting a new garden or thinking of jazzing up an established garden, you might want to consider integrating native plants. There's so many benefits to planting native plants. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects, they provide habitat for wildlife, and they're often pretty easy to grow.
[00:00:21] Challenges of Growing Blueberries
But that's not necessarily the case with blueberries. Blueberry bushes are native to North America so they should be easy to grow, but these plants are actually quite fussy. If your blueberries aren't planted in suitable soil, they will become stressed and unproductive.
[00:00:41] Understanding Blueberry Soil Requirements
So in the show today, we are going to talk about blueberries and soil.
We'll learn where they grow naturally, and how to recreate an environment that blueberries will love in your own backyard.
[00:00:54] Interview with Kathy Jemchak
And my guest on the show today is Kathy Jemchak, Senior Extension Associate in the Department of Plant Science at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. She works with berry growers in Pennsylvania to help them grow berries successfully and in an environmentally sustainable way.
And if you're listening to the show live today, you can ask Kathy your questions. We look forward to hearing from you.
So now, let's talk blueberries. Kathy, welcome to the show today. Thank you, Susan. I'm really happy to be here.
[00:01:34] Natural Habitats of Blueberries
Kathy, blueberries are a native plant in North America. Where would we naturally find these plants growing? Yes, so blueberries are native. There are different species of them all through United States, Canada, up towards some colder areas. And these are some different species that are in different habitats. The two that we'll probably focus the most on today are lowbush blueberries. Which is Vaccinium angustifolium. These grow in wild stands in the northeastern U. S. and in southeastern Canada.
And then, there are highbush blueberries. There are also various species that will be found in the forest understory. And so some of the plants are more drought tolerant and some are not. What they all do have in common though, is that they prefer a soil with a low pH that is relatively low in nutrients.
So basically, blueberries like crummy soil. They like crummy soil. They're also in crummy soil. Yes. So where you might look for them, perhaps in the wild, and where they might do really well are in areas that tend to look a little on the scrubby side, I guess you could call it, where it looks like other plants aren't doing well or areas that might be referred to as barrens, such as pine barrens. In these areas, the soils have nutrients available in different proportions from what they would in ag soils and the blueberries are able to access these nutrients in different ways than what our other commonly cultivated plants can. And so they're very much adapted to these different types of ecosystems. Okay. So they're adapted to these ecosystems and you said they're very different than other plants.
[00:03:29] Blueberry Root Systems and Mycorrhizal Associations
And that's the roots, isn't it? Let's talk about the roots. What is it about blueberry roots that make them okay with kind of nutrient poor soil? Yes. So there are a couple of different things going on. One is that they have a very fine root system. And this is a root system where the majority of the roots are only about the width of a human hair. So they're very fine. They do not have, however, what is referred to as root hairs that other types of plants have, which are basically an extension of the epidermis that the plant can produce and shed very quickly if needed. The blueberries do not have those root hairs. Instead, they have a very fine entire root system.
On top of that, they often in nature form associations with mycorrhizal fungi that act as an extension of that root system and help forage for nutrients that might be available in the soil in lower quantities. And that is very common, and it helps with things like nitrogen uptake in particular.
And it's just a completely different kind of interaction from perhaps other mycorrhizal associations that you might hear about with other crop plants. So it sounds like blueberries really rely on microorganisms almost more than other plants because other plants have these little root hairs that help them get nutrients out of the soil and the blueberry is like a little baby. It needs somebody to bring the nutrients into the plant in a way. Yeah, in a way that is true. Now, I can't really say that they are more dependent on these associations necessarily than other plants. Other species of plants, such as pine trees and other native plants may form different types of mycorrhizal associations with other fungi, but the blueberries in particular have this association with what's referred to as ericoid mycorrhizal fungi that are really good at foraging for nitrogen. In the beginning, I talked about native plants and they're terrific and shouldn't they be so easy.
[00:05:37] Making Your Garden Suitable for Blueberries
So let's bring blueberries back into it, I guess they're easy if you happen to have a scrubby backyard with low nutrients, lots of mycorrhizal fungi and what would that perfect backyard look like? So basically, blueberries, would you say they're an easy native plant to grow or no? It can be if you do the right things for them first.
And so the real goal is to try to make what is your backyard more like what they might find in nature. And so there are a lot of things we do to our backyards over time that aren't necessarily good for blueberries. We may be liming to get grass to grow or to bring the pH for some garden plants, and if those types of things have been done to an area for a long time, it may not be best suited to blueberries, or you may need to do some things to get that soil to be more like what a blueberry might like. So in particular, some of the things they really like are things like a high organic matter level, but often we will go through certain practices when we establish the plants both before and while we establish them to make sure that the area we're growing them in is going to give them the best chance for success. Oh, that's fantastic. So in this show today we'll talk about how to make your garden hospitable to a blueberry plant to evaluate whether your garden is even the right place for a blueberry plant. Sometimes you have to consider that.
[00:07:18] Listener Questions: Winterizing and Pruning Blueberries
We have an email from a listener. Carolyn's from Edmonton, Alberta. She says, could you please, dear Kathy, could you please share tips on winterizing urban blueberry plants, and how best to support their growth in the spring? Should blueberry bushes be pruned annually? If so, when's the best time of year? And are there any companion plants that help blueberry bushes to enhance fruit production? Many thanks for considering my questions. Wow, Carolyn, you're amazing.
Great, all great questions. So what should we talk about first winterizing, perhaps? Yes. so winterizing. So one of the things and maybe we'll get into this a little bit later on, but one of the things we will normally do with blueberries, is that we will apply a good mulch layer to them during establishment, and that is one thing that can help quite a bit during the summertime in terms of the soil freezing and then as it thaws out, and perhaps freezes and thaws during the fall and spring can help with moderating those soil temperatures and keeping them from dropping too low by doing some insulation as well. And also helping with keeping the roots from breaking as the soil freezes or thaws during the fall and spring.
So that is one thing that can help. Another thing that is related to winter time is that when you're choosing a site for your blueberries, you do want to avoid being close to an area where you might be spreading salt, perhaps to melt ice on sidewalks or driveways, because they aren't very salt tolerant at all that can really kill them.
If you're in a windy area, you may want to wrap some plants with burlap, but normally that's not necessary. In some of the colder, windier areas, depending on the snow level, you may be able to choose a variety that is a cross between a highbush and a lowbush, and these are referred to as half high.
Half high varieties that will stay below the level of the snow that you typically get. So there are a lot of things that you can do both in your planning and while you're taking care of those plants to help in terms of winter protection. Now, coming into this time of the year, coming into spring is when we would normally prune them and the way, blueberries grow, and here we're talking about highbush blueberries and this will apply to the half size as well. We're not really going to touch on lowbush blueberries for this. They will normally send up new canes from the root system, and those canes will become more twiggy, over time.
And as they become more twiggy, they become thinner and they dry out and desiccate more quickly during the wintertime. They also tend to produce, perhaps, how do you want to say that, each of those tips can produce flower buds, and so you can end up with those older canes producing a lot of small berries, whereas a younger cane might produce bigger, fatter berries.
And yeah, so what we want to do with that plant is keep a range of cane ages on it that are from about one to five or six years old, a range of cane ages. gradually, over time, we will prune out the oldest canes and allow younger, newer canes to come up to replace those. And so that'll keep the plant young. We'll also do some pruning to remove any kind of disease looking wood or anything, that just isn't growing well, that might be harboring some problems. That's pretty simple strategy, get rid of the oldest canes, make sure you have a wide range of ages, in the canes.
That's fantastic. Her last quick question was, are there any companion plants that really like blueberries and blueberries like them. Yes. I actually love that question. So, the plant family that blueberries belong to is the Ericaceae plant family. So that's the same family that azaleas and rhododendrons belong to as well. So instead of trying to put blueberries in your garden with your tomatoes or your strawberries or raspberries, you're actually much better off grouping them with your azaleas and rhododendrons. There are other ground covers like tea berries, lily of the valley. There are all sorts of plants in that Ericaceae plant family that can go along with, and I think it's really important that you take care of your blueberries really well so that you can take care of all of them in a similar way and have them all be happy together. That sounds perfect.
Okay.
[00:12:03] Listener Questions: Soil Amendments and pH
We got a whole bunch more questions. Next one is from Bond from Peterborough, Ontario. Bond says, I'm wondering what kind of sand I can use to amend my soil with to grow blueberries successfully and how much should I add. Okay, this is another really good question. So, there are different types of sand out there. There is play sand that is not the best, that is actually very fine and there isn't a lot of variation in it, which these fine roots need. They do need to be able to work their way through the soil because they're so fine so the play sand is not the best. This might be longer answer than you wanted, but then there's also builders sand, which may be pulverized rock that might have a high pH to it. We've actually found that to be the case. So not that either. There is a coarser type of sand you can get that might be sold as sandblaster sand or silica sand that is relatively inert. And that seems to be the type of sand that is best for blueberries. You can mix in up to 50 percent sand if you want to. Some growers will use a mix of half peat, half silica sand as a growing media and it works very. Well, that was a great question and a great answer.
So let's move on to Denise. Denise says, hello from Alma, Quebec. A very interesting topic today, since blueberries are a great anti inflammatory food. As we know, inflammation is the body's response to help cure injuries and disease. However, too much inflammation is bad for the body. These beautiful berries help reduce that. Thank you for sharing, Denise. that's great. All the more reason, and they taste good. They're good for you, and they taste good. That's an extra thing.
We have an email now from Lisa. Now, where's Lisa? Okay, from Iroquois, Ontario. Excited about today's program.
[00:14:01] Listener Questions: Moving and Planting Blueberries
We moved our highbush plants in the fall, and I'm still holding my breath that they survived the winter in their new spot. Ooh, is it tricky to move blueberries? It can be. Yes, it can be difficult. The root system Can be fairly shallow and spread out over a fairly large area, which can make it difficult to move. Now this is for highbush plants, so it can be tricky to move them. If you manage to get enough of the root system though, they should survive. A number of people have done that successfully. What you will want to do this spring though, is possibly give them pretty good pruning at the top, so that they're not trying to pull out more moisture and transpire more moisture than the roots can actually provide. So that may help them with just navigating this transition that they're making. If they are to prune a bit of the top of the plant, is there a limit? Should they only prune 20 percent of the canes or can they cut it right to the ground if need be? They can even cut it right to the ground if they need to. So this is off topic, maybe from what was originally asked, but sometimes when a planting gets very old, it hasn't been pruned in a long time, it will become less productive or some plantings will just peter out over time. And sometimes we will tell folks to try just pruning the canes down to jumpstart the plant, and that actually will often work fairly well. So in this case, with a listener, I would actually rather err on the side of pruning too much rather than too little. It's, really, yeah, it's really difficult to do that because you want those blueberries. So psychologically, it's hard to make yourself do that, but typically we say you can remove about 40 percent of the top without affecting your yields at all, but normally the plant will just compensate by producing large berries. And by removing the top, if you've moved your plant recently, you're actually allowing the roots to extend further. All the energy that was in the roots won't be wasting its time too much with supporting existing canes. It'll go into the roots, they'll extend, they'll settle in, heal themselves from the move, I'm guessing. Yes, correct, and send up some new canes over time. You just need a little patience. Yeah, with time.
Okay, Bond has another question here as a follow up question. Is it okay to plant blueberries in raised beds or would they not prefer that? Thanks for the great information. That's from Bon again. Yes, so raised beds can work perfectly fine. We just want to make sure that you do have those beds mulched in so that you don't have perhaps like a very narrow bed that might freeze and thaw over the wintertime. So we're looking at soil mass here, but commercially, a lot of growers do have raised beds and they work very well especially if they tend to be in wetter areas where they might feel like they need some additional drainage in that soil. So yes, so raised beds are perfectly fine. Not a problem.
Okay. We've got an email from Amy. Amy. says, Hello, I have about a half an acre of highbush blueberries in Southwest Michigan. Any tips for pruning would be greatly appreciated. While we talked about that, this spring I pruned out about half of the thick old gray canes and about half of the new canes. I'm hoping it didn't prune too much. Also, can you prune blueberries once the weather has warmed up late spring or will that hurt the plants? That's from Amy and it's a fantastic question. Yes, so normally we would prefer the pruning to be happening sooner than that. It probably won't hurt the plant in itself directly. However, one of the things that's happening in springtime, we talked about fungi and the mycorrhizal associations. Of course, we also have plant diseases, and a lot of those are waking up right about the same time our plants are where there's tender foliage that they can affect, that sort of thing. And so there are a number of cane diseases that if you're pruning too late, and these fungi are beginning to sporulate, that they may land on some of those open wounds and cause some issues that way. So we would really rather that the pruning be done just as the buds are beginning to swell, and hopefully wrapped up by that point. If it's too late and you don't really have a choice at this point, you can prune, watching for what the weather forecast looks like coming up. So you don't want to do it when you have rain in the forecast. A lot of the diseases need certain periods of wetness to sporulate. So if you know you have perhaps three or four dry days coming up after you intend to prune, that is safer than pruning when it might be wetter.
All right, we have a question from Jeff, who I know, who is a great photographer by the way, and so my friend Jeff is from Warrenville, Illinois, and he says, been growing blueberries for 12 years, and every year adding peat, sulfur, and pine needles, getting good crops, and this year sent off for pH 5. 9. So I learned a new trick this year from a horticulturalist in California, and that is applying powdered sulfur instead of prill style. Prill style. He says that the conversion to acid is very quick, unlike up to a year with prills. I applied it in a hose. We'll do two to three applications this year with a total of 10 pounds for 1000 squared feet. I have 35 bushes, comments. So Jeff wants some comments on his strategy and maybe explain to people a little. What is Jeff trying to achieve? It sounds like he's going to a lot of trouble to grow his blueberries and people with blueberries in the backyard are going to be like, Oh, should I be doing that stuff? Yeah. So what's he up to? Yeah, I really like his approach because what he's doing is a little bit at a time, and the pH is currently yes, a little on the high side there. Normally we would like it to be a maximum of 5.5 closer to, 4.5 to 5.2, is what we normally think of as the optimum range. But I like the fact that he is he's doing a little bit at a time and trying to do some sort of maintenance that keeps the pH where it should be. So the sulfur he is talking about is a finer type of powder and that will react more quickly with the soil as he had mentioned.
The prills that he refers to are relatively easy to work with and spread by hand. So those are basically little pellets, but it can take them a long time to break down. He had mentioned that it can take up to a year. We've actually seen it take as long as 2 to 3 years in colder areas where there just isn't a lot of reactions taking place, or perhaps there isn't enough abrasion of those prills to really make them break down and start reacting with the soil. One of the things about sulfur is that it actually requires different types of soil microorganisms to help with using that sulfur as a food source, and that starts the process of breaking down the sulfur into sulfates and other chemical compounds that react with the soil more quickly. And the finer it is, more surface area, the faster those reactions take place. And so that's a really good tip he came up with there. So Jeff, you've got total approval on this end here. So I'm sure you're glad to hear that.
We have a couple more emails. I also want to talk a little bit more about pH. What is this mysterious pH and why it's so important.
So Kathy, earlier in the show we talked about pH. And it's funny, there are these situations where people go to Home Depot and they see, wow, a blueberry plant, it's on sale. I'm going to put it in my yard. It's like really great price. So can we talk about pH? What is pH and why is it important for a successful experience with your blueberry plant?
Yes, so pH is a measure of how acidic or basic your soil might be. And as we mentioned in the first part of the show, blueberries really do need a soil that is on the acidic side of that range. 4. 5 to 5. 2 is ideal, up to 5. 5 is fine. And so what is happening when the soil pH is in this more acidic range is that the availability of different nutrients and the forms in which they exist based on soil chemistry are somewhat different. For example, nitrogen is in the ammonium form, whereas you might look at a bag of fertilizer and see that perhaps it has something called nitrate in it. That's a nitrate form. That is not the kind of nitrogen that blueberries use. They actually need the ammonium form. And so when you are under these lower pH conditions, the nutrients are in forms that the blueberries are better able to take up and some of them, such as micronutrients, such as iron or zinc, are also much more available to the plants. And so often, if you put a blueberry in a soil that is too high of a pH, you'll see that it turns yellow because of usually an iron deficiency. And so some of the first steps we want people to do is to do a soil test on their soil. And we generally will recommend that they use a lab that is in their region because, normally, that will use methods that give them the most accurate picture of how their soil is behaving and how nutrients are available. And that could be a whole other show for a whole other time as to why that is. Now, people can do a quick pH test at home, just using pH test strips from like a swimming pool place or an aquarium or a dealership or pet store. What they want to do is mix their soil with half distilled water and half soil. Stir that, let it settle out for about a half hour, and then they can dip in the test strip. And that will give them at least a rough idea. if they find they have a pH of 7. 5, it's probably a good idea not to try to put those plants in that first year. They may want to grow them in a container or something for a while, but definitely, you want to work on that soil and get the pH into the correct range. And that's part of the problem with the temptations of our garden centers, because if you have a soil at 7. 5, there's probably a lot of fantastic things that would thrive in that soil. What type of plants would love 7. 5? You don't have to change it if you're going to grow something other than blueberries there, perhaps, what would like 7. 5? Asparagus is one thing that will like a higher pH. A lot of our typical garden plants will tolerate a higher pH like that. It doesn't mean it's even best for them. They may prefer something closer to a neutral to slightly acidic range, but at least they'll tolerate it better. So we need to get intimate with our soil. We need to know what we have in the garden so that we know what will thrive there. Is there any pH that all plants love, typically, we will say somewhere around 6.5 is a sweet spot. 6.5 to 6.8 somewhere in that range. You can grow a lot of different things really well. There are just specialized things such as blueberries that won't do well there, but that's a sweet spot for a lot of our garden plants.
Okay, so you're ready to plant your blueberry plant, hopefully not necessarily the one you got from the garden center, Home Depot. Maybe you thought about it more. You thought about the cultivar, you checked your soil. If you get a soil test, will they tell you how to correct your soil so that it will be appropriate for blueberries? Yes. And that is another reason why they want to use a commercial lab as well. Typically, there will be forms that you will send in along with your soil sample that will ask you what you intend to grow there. And if you specify blueberries, not only will they check the pH, they will also check for something called the buffer pH, which is the tendency of your soil to buffer against changes in pH. So there might be a lot of calcium or magnesium in that soil, which means you might need to add perhaps more sulfur to get the pH down into the correct range. Then you might, perhaps in the soil that is less buffered, so that would be like a sand, perhaps clays also tend to be more highly buffered and so they can actually test your soil to find out what you need to do specifically for your soil, to get that pH down into the correct range. And they will give you specific instructions. This is what to do with your soil. This is how much to sprinkle down. This is what to do. Yes, typically they will give you that if you're a commercial grower on a per acre basis or for a home garden, perhaps on a per thousand square foot basis and tell you how many pounds of sulfur you need or other materials you could use. Fantastic.
So what about, then you plant your plant, your blueberry plant, you give it lots of love, you water it regularly.
[00:28:24] Listener Questions: Fertilizing Blueberries
What about now, you say that these are plants that don't need a lot of fancy nutrient inputs or do we fertilize them quite regularly? Do blueberries need a lot of fertilizers? There are a few things I want to touch on there. One is the part about planting the plant that I do want to touch on, is that we mentioned they have this very fine root system, so they do need a lot of organic matter in the soil. And so when you're planting your plant, typically we will recommend that you mix in about half peat moss to half soil, when you're making that planting hole and putting your plants in the ground. So the bigger an area you can work this organic matter into, the better. And then, typically we will want to mulch the plants with organic matter. Again, keep those soil, those roots cool and moist and get your plants off to a good start. And then when it comes to fertilizing. Yes, you're exactly correct.
They don't need as much fertilizer as a lot of our other garden plants might. It is very easy to burn the roots off of them in the first year. Normally, when you get your soil test results, there will be some recommendations for mixing in nitrogen. So that's mixed in throughout the whole bed. So it's dispersed, and you're not getting fertilizer concentrated in one area. So there will be that. But then after you plant the plants, about two months after planting, once they've become established, you can give them a light dose of a nitrogen fertilizer with the equivalent of what's only, if you were using something like ammonium sulfate which is 20 percent nitrogen, you would only apply about a half of a tablespoon per plant maximum to give that plant a little extra nutrition in that first year. You can use organic forms of fertilizer as well that are made for acid loving plants. Those are fine too. They tend to be a little gentler, but yes, they don't need nearly as much. And even in a mature planting, we are really still looking at fertilizer rates that are only about half that you might put on a tomato plant in the year that you're growing it. So, the levels are very low. I had mentioned that half tablespoon of ammonium sulfate, you may increase that to four to six tablespoons per plant in a mature planting over the span of about five to six years. But other than that, they really don't need a whole lot of fertilizer.
We do, however, recommend that people do continue to do a soil test every so often. More often when they're establishing the plants, but maybe spread that out every two to three years or so once the planting is established, just to see if any other nutrients are getting out of whack as they're being extracted from the soil. So yeah, so you keeping an eye on your plant and it's thriving and it sounds like the fussy part of the blueberry is just getting the environment right. And then after that, it's a pretty, not, low maintenance. You have to prune it. You have to feed it, but it's not very necessarily super demanding once it's established. That is correct. Yes. I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah. That's good.
[00:31:56] Exploring Blueberry Varieties and Cultivars
Now, something I wanted to talk about with you is I know you live in the middle of a forested area, that there are blueberries there that grow wild native blueberries. And this is hard for me as a city dweller to even imagine that there are many different types of blueberries that are very different from either the cultivated blueberries we get at the supermarket, or you get the little wild blueberries. So what are the different, varieties or cultivars of blueberries that are available, and can we actually plant these different native blueberry plants in our backyards? Yes. One thing we hadn't really gotten into yet is that blueberries are a relatively recent addition to our agricultural crops that we are cultivating.
So they've been growing wild for thousands and thousands of years, and they've been adapted to these different areas. It's only been within a little over the last hundred years that there were really concerted efforts to breed varieties. A lot of the early blueberries that were grown were either, as this still happens now, wild stands that were harvested, or selections from the wild that were planted.
Now, there are these other species we had mentioned. Some of them that are growing outside of my house right now are various forest understory plants that have the ability to impart things like drought tolerance to plants. And so breeders over time have looked to these other species and are making crosses that do give them better adaptation to things like drought conditions, and some of them are imparting an ability to tolerate slightly heat, higher
pHs as well. But really those efforts are relatively new. So when it comes back to what kinds of plants you might want to plant, there are cultivars that have been bred both in lowbush, but primarily in highbush, that are available. There are a few that aren't that far removed from wild selections.
In fact, one, is called Rubel. That one is still actually just a selection from the wild. That one is of interest to people because one of your earlier listeners had mentioned antioxidants and anti inflammatory properties. That variety is very small fruited blueberry, as are a lot of the lowbush, that has a high antioxidant concentration because it has relatively more skin to pulp in each berry, and that tends to result in higher antioxidant levels within those berries. So people who are interested in that in particular might want to look for a smaller fruited variety like that one.
There are a lot of other great varieties out there that have been around for quite a long time. Blue Crop is one of my favorites that has a really good flavor to it and a nice berry size. Patriot's another favorite. Basically, the nurseries that are in your area hopefully will know what cultivars perform best for your area. But often a lot of the stores where perhaps, as you had mentioned, you might go to a home improvement center. They may be buying in something that may not necessarily be adapted best to your area. I also would encourage people just to look for sources of information like yours, or if they're in the U. S., in the extension service. Also, Ag Canada has a lot of great publications related to good varieties that'll do well in various areas. I think it's worth trying, isn't it? Trying different things and different varieties and cultivars and native plants for sure.
We have a question from Julie from Lake Charles, Ontario. So Julie asks, I have read in a few places now, Michael Phillips, Nigel Palmer, the two authors, that with a healthy soil biology, the pH of the soil in close proximity to the roots of the plant, where the plant and soil biology interact, can be very different than the pH of the general soil in the area. Plants have the ability to create the soil environment they need to thrive, to a degree. So acid loving plants like blueberries do not magically find acidic soil to grow in, but the soil biology that the blueberry plant supports, causes a shift to the acidic soil pH. She says, if this were true, couldn't you plant blueberries in soils with any pH and they'd be able to survive? Or perhaps only plants that are mature enough with enough root mass could survive in soils of high pHs? Fascinating question. It is a fascinating question. So yes, the plant's root systems do exude various types of acids. They do have some ability to modify the environment right around them to some extent. And what the listener is referring to is true to a certain extent. However, there are some soils where the elements that are in that soil are fairly different from what the blueberry plant might really want. And there is a reason why we don't see them growing everywhere in nature. And that tells me that there is a limit to what the plants can do as far as modifying their own environment or else they would be everywhere. And so I think, there's a question here and it's, always been a question in my mind as well as far as the chicken, the egg, do the blueberry, are they in an area because the soils are good for them, or are they there because nothing else can survive there and they're just the plants that remain. There's, always those questions. But I do think still, as we look at the biology of the plant and the morphology of the plant and how its root system is structured, there are certain things that it does need in terms of these porous soils and these mycorrhizal associations that keep it in the realm in which it is happy in nature, and I think that's really the safest route to go.
I also had some interesting and fun comments from Facebook. And on Facebook, I had a comment from Leslie from Georgia. So Leslie says there are some wild huckleberries near our home in the North Georgia mountains along the forest edge. Our planting site is in full sun, so we chose Rabbiteye cultivars.
UGA has a strong Rabbiteye breeding program and they're recommended for their disease resistance in the hot, humid south. We're growing at a home scale and we named our puppy Huckleberry. That is fun. Oh, I love that. Huckleberry hound bear. Yes. So in the Southeastern United States, and even if you get down into Florida, there will be other types of blueberries that are better adapted to those areas as opposed to where I am, or outward Canada, and the Rabbiteye are very commonly grown down there. They do give some wider adaptation to the heat and to the soils that are in the South. I also want to mention, too, when we talk about highbush varieties, that there are northern highbush, which are what we grow here and then there are southern highbush and there are differences. Not only in heat tolerance, but also in terms of winter chilling requirements. And so the southern highbush do not need as long of a cold period during the winter time before they sense that it's spring and it's time to break bud. So there are all of these different types of blueberries, and you really do need to find the ones that are adapted to your region.
So a couple more just quick Facebook comments. There's a comment from Andrew from New York. I'm in the southern area at a Rondax just north of Ithaca, New York. And our property has a lot of native lowbush blueberries. So Andrew says they are tart, small, and don't ripen evenly. It's tedious to try and pick enough for baking. Aha. So not all wild blueberries are even worth your time in terms of nibbling on them. So there could be a couple of different things going on there. I would like to know how much sun that those bushes are getting because that can affect production of sugars in the plant. And so it's possible that if he had more sun to that area. Perhaps they would become sweeter. There are some types of understory blueberries that are very tart, though. And so I'd really like to know exactly which species he has there. He may have something a little different from what I'm picturing there, but also, yes, there are just some ranges in flavors among these native plants. Yeah, and that's the great thing because we just assume that blueberries are blueberries. I would love to have a blueberry tasting to really be able to taste the difference.
I'm sure I can already sense that the smaller ones would have more skin to them and for the listener that was talking about nutrition, I don't know, maybe the nutrition, the antioxidants are in the skin, but it's like I can imagine the different flavors would be wonderful to explore.
Have you ever attended a blueberry tasting with different cultivars to try? Yes, so actually we do a number of cultivar trials here where we will have 10 or 15 or 20 different cultivars that we might be tasting, and it's always a lot of fun to get everybody to try these different cultivars and give their impressions. And what is really interesting is not only do the blueberries taste different, but people's perception of what they like is so different too. So some people will prefer a berry that might be a little tarter and I swear, different people must be able to taste different compounds because there's one particular variety where I will pick up a cinnamon flavor to it, but not everybody does. And so I think, yeah, different people might prefer something a little bit different, but just the range of flavors is pretty amazing. Kathy, what you do is so interesting and you're so passionate about it. What is it about? Is it blueberries in general? Is it plants in general? What is it about that really makes you so passionate about doing what you do?
Yeah, it's plants in general. Ever since I've been a kid, I've been growing plants and I jokingly refer to this sometimes in my house in terms of houseplants is having a propagation affliction because I can't seem to stop multiplying plants, but I just love them. I love the greenery.
I love nature and it just gives your house and your life a different feeling. I think when you're either in the garden or have plants in your house and it must also be so rewarding working with growers who have frustrations, like some of the people that wrote in, with their questions, people have these, whether it's blueberry plants or other plants, and they're not performing as they want them to be.
But when you make a change and when you know that you've helped somebody to grow more successfully, that must feel pretty good too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I sometimes I think I have the the best job in the world. And I love the folks I work with on a daily basis, or growers, I might only cross paths with from time to time, but yeah, it doesn't get much better than this.
Oh, fantastic. And thank you so much to everybody who wrote in these fantastic questions. The entire first half of the show was generated by the listeners and you guys wrote fantastic questions.
And Kathy, I want to thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us on the show today. I hope you had some fun. Oh, I was happy to be here, Susan. Yes, it was a great time. So thanks for the invitation. All right, fantastic.
[00:44:16] Conclusion and Upcoming Shows
we are going to wrap up the show for today. we've got an interesting show coming up next month.
We talked a little bit about soil testing in the show today. And next month we are going to go into a lot of detail about the different types of soil testing it's something I'm interested in right now, and I want to learn more about so it should be an interesting show and that's coming up next month. Thank you so much for tuning into the show and I will see you guys again next month.