ISHS Acta Horticulturae 574: VII International Symposium on Vaccinium Culture
BLUEBERRY FRUIT SET AND INTERVALS FROM BLOSSOMING TO RIPENING |
| Author: | C.M. Mainland |
| Keywords: | highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum L.), rabbiteye (V. ashei Reade) marketing, predicting ripening, heat units, pollination |
| Abstract:
Highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum) fruit set averaged 64% for 10 cultivars in the 1998 and 1999 seasons in southeastern North Carolina. At the same location and same years six rabbiteye, (V. ashei) cultivars averaged 61% set for five cultivars. Predicting ripening dates and harvest volumes has become an important part of marketing blueberries. Sales are arranged before fruit ripens. Chain stores require a minimum of two to three weeks to develop the advertising needed for orderly marketing of large volumes of fruit. It is especially important in North Carolina where one early cultivar, Croatan, represents 60% of the production. Also, a large percentage of ‘Croatan’ berries ripen very soon after the first berries ripen. Flowers were tagged the day they opened and harvested the day the berry was completely blue to determine the development time. ‘Croatan’ averaged 57, 54, 62, 59, and 55 days in the years 1995 through1999 respectively. Developmental times have also been measured for ‘Bluechip’, ‘Bluecrop’, ‘Elliott’, ‘O’Neal’, ‘Reveille’, ‘Pender’, ‘Bladen’, ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘Blue Ridge’ highbush and ‘Premier’, ‘Tifblue’, ‘Powderblue’, ‘Montgomery’ and ‘Ira’ rabbiteye. Developmental periods combined with environmental conditions have helped predict ripening dates and harvest volumes. | |
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