ISHS Acta Horticulturae 810: IX International Vaccinium Symposium
PROCEDURES FOR FORCING CULTURE OF SOUTHERN HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY IN JAPAN |
| Authors: | Takato Tamada, Mitsunori Ozeki |
| Keywords: | Vaccinium corymbosum, off-season production, pot culture |
| Abstract:
In Japan, one of the major problems in producing good quality blueberry fruit is that the harvesting season of many highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) cultivars occurs during the rainy season (June and July). For this reason, we have been investigating a proper method to force blueberries into producing mature fruit before the rainy season. Many southern highbush cultivars were grown under heating culture, and the flowering and harvesting time, percentage of harvest and yield, and fruit quality parameters were determined. The potted plants were transferred from outdoors into a plastic house at the beginning of February in 2006 and 2007. Temperature was maintained between 10°C and 35°C with heating until the middle of May in both years. Bee pollination, watering, fertilizing were performed using conventional methods. Although some differences occurred from year to year, flowering and harvesting time were advanced 30–40 days under heating culture, compared to the open field culture. The ripening and harvesting time of all cultivars were almost completed before the rainy season began, regardless of the differences of plant age and pot soil. Fruit size, juice pH, soluble solid content, citric acid content and soluble solid-acid ratio differed among the cultivars. We found that these characteristics also varied with year, plant age and pot soil. From the results we conclude that heating culture of southern highbush blueberry is effective in forcing blueberries plants to produce mature fruit before the rainy season begins in Japan. We have demonstrated the effective date and the proper method of heating culture, including the start and length of heating period, heating temperature, pot culture and the use of recommended cultivars of southern highbush blueberry. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
