Tall blueberries belong to the genus Vaccinium and have quite a few different names: cocklebur, drunkard and many others. It can be found in the Northern Hemisphere, Eurasia, North America, California and even Alaska. Blueberry is a deciduous plant. Now tall blueberries are increasingly becoming an object for cultivation by gardeners. It has a lot of useful properties and is valued in medicine. If earlier blueberries were grown in America, now it is not uncommon in such countries as Ukraine and Russia.
When to plant
Tall blueberries can be planted outdoors in spring and autumn. But it is better to give preference to landing in the spring. Since during the spring and summer the seedlings can take root and take root, but the planted blueberries in the fall can become a victim of early frosts. Next, let's try to figure out how to plant and care for tall blueberries, and also study all the features of this variety.
Soil
Before acquiring seedlings, you need to choose the most suitable place for planting blueberries. She will like a sunny site where there will be no wind. There will be very few berries in the shade, and their taste will be at the lowest level. Particular attention should be paid to the choice of soil, since not only the yield, but also the he alth of the plant depends on it.
Blueberries can only grow normally in acidic soil. It is considered ideal if a few years before planting this plant, the land will be fallow. Because the predecessors are extremely "annoying" blueberries.
Spring planting
Planting blueberries before they start to bud. Pay attention to the choice of blueberry variety. Since low-growing varieties will grow better in cold areas, but in those areas where summer lasts a long time and is characterized by a strong increase in air temperature, tall varieties will be much more comfortable.
When purchasing seedlings, try to buy bushes in containers. But when planting, you don’t just need to pull them out of the pot and rearrange them into the hole. Blueberries have too fragile and tender roots, and they will not be able to deal with the ground on their own. The container with the seedling must be lowered in advance into a container with warm water and left for several hours. After that, take out the earthen ball and try to gently straighten the root system.
Planting holes should be prepared in advance. Their size is 60 x 60 centimeters, and the depth canreach half a meter, and when planting tall varieties of blueberries, the distance from one bush to another is at least 120 centimeters. Observe the distance between the rows - from three to three and a half meters, depending on the variety.
At the bottom of the hole, you need to lay a specially prepared substrate, which consists of the following components:
- moor peat;
- sawdust, sand, needles;
- 50 grams of sulfur, which is needed for oxidation.
The resulting mixture should be mixed well and slightly compacted at the bottom. No fertilizers, especially organics, need to be added. The right moment will come for this. When the hole is ready, you can safely lower the seedling there, straighten the roots and sprinkle with earth. The root neck should be deepened by three centimeters. After that, the bush needs to be well watered and laid out around a twelve-centimeter layer of mulch. It can be peat, needles, sawdust or straw.
Growing
Tall blueberry reviews about ease of care are positive. Like many other garden plants, it needs periodic loosening of the soil in the root zone. This process must be carried out several times per season, without deepening too much so as not to damage the root system. Hence a new need arises - mulching. Since the roots of blueberries are fifteen centimeters from the surface. Mulch needs to be renewed every two or three years. Do not ignore the emerging weeds, which must be removed immediately.
Irrigation
Watering is a special conversation. Since you need to water well, but at the same time so that the water does not stagnate for more than two days. Watering is carried out twice a week. Each adult bush needs one bucket of water. Water early in the morning and late in the evening.
In July-August, fruiting begins, and during this period the bushes especially need moisture. If the plant feels a lack of moisture, then the harvest of this and next year will be meager and devoid of taste. On especially hot days, blueberries should not only be watered, but also sprayed so that they do not dry out.
Feeding
This plant does not need particularly fertile soil, but it will say "thank you" for top dressing. Fertilizers for tall blueberries should be applied in early spring, when sap flow occurs, buds are actively developing. Immediately forget about organic fertilizers - this is contraindicated. Better use:
- ammonium sulfate;
- magnesium sulfate;
- potassium sulfate;
- zinc sulfate;
- superphosphate.
Fertilization occurs in three stages. 40% of the required nitrogen fertilizers must be applied during the period when sap flow occurs. Then another 35% - in May, and the remaining 25% - in early June. More precisely, it is from 70 to 90 grams of fertilizer for one bush. This applies to nitrogen fertilizers. Phosphoric has its own system. They are brought in in autumn and summer, 100 grams for one bush.
Propagation of tall blueberries
Reproduction can occur both by seeds and by any other vegetative method. Seeds are collected in the form of blueberries, which must be dried well and planted in autumn on specially prepared training beds with acidic soil. If you plan to plant seeds in the spring, then they must undergo preliminary stratification. To do this, they are sent to the refrigerator for three months. After stratification, the seeds are placed in a previously prepared groove and sprinkled with earth a little.
The most favorable air temperature for their germination is 23-25 degrees Celsius. Do not forget to water regularly, free from weeds and loosen the ground. Only after two years can the seedlings be fed with nitrogen fertilizers and transplanted to a permanent place.
The most reliable and fastest way of propagation is cuttings. Cuttings for this are cut in late autumn, when all the leaves have already fallen, or in early spring, when sap flow has not yet begun. A good cutting should not be less than eight centimeters in length. And the thicker the shoot, the faster the roots will begin to sprout. Within a month, the shoot is stored at a temperature of one to five degrees. This is a kind of stratification. And then it is planted in a pre-prepared mixture of sand and peat (3: 1). A tall blueberry seedling should stand slightly at an angle. With good care, in two years the seedlings will be fully developed and ready for planting in open ground.
You can also try dividing the bush. When transplanting, the bush is divided into several parts, so that each seedling has good roots and severalyoung shoots with buds. Delenki should be immediately landed in a permanent place.
Cutting
Blueberries, like all shrubs, need annual pruning. It is better to carry it out in the spring, when the buds have not yet begun to swell. After the winter, there are many frozen branches, broken or completely dried up. All of them must be cut and burned immediately. In young plants, all flowers should be removed in the first year, which will only positively affect future fruiting.
And also by pruning young plants, you can form a good skeleton and the correct shape of the crown. If your garden has bushes that are more than four years old, then, in addition to the above branches, you need to remove those that are already more than five years old. They no longer bear fruit and interfere with the development of young shoots. And make sure that the branches of the bushes growing nearby do not touch. This leads to a deterioration in the yield and reduces the taste of blueberries.
Pests
The main enemies of blueberries are birds that rush to peck ripe berries. To prevent feathered pests, you can pull a mesh with medium-sized holes over the bushes. As for insects, they practically do not bother this berry, but you can’t be 100% sure of anything. Bushes can be attacked by spring insects such as cockchafers and cockchafers. They gnaw not only the leaves, but also eat away the flowers, which can completely deprive the gardener of his harvest. Various types of caterpillars can start,which also hunt for leaves. Sometimes the larvae attack the root system. If the beetles can be collected by hand, then all other pests can be killed by spraying with actellik or karbofos. These funds can also be used as a preventive measure.
Diseases
There are a number of diseases that are dangerous for blueberries. This includes:
- fungal diseases;
- stalk cancer;
- Phomopsis;
- grey rot;
- physalsporosis;
- fruit monoliosis;
- double spotting;
- white spotting.
Almost all fungal diseases are the result of stagnant water in the root system. This problem may occur due to the fact that the gardener could not organize proper watering, or the soil cannot pass moisture. To combat diseases, as well as just for prevention, you can treat plants with Bordeaux liquid, and you can also use drugs such as topaz or foundationazole.
Sometimes blueberry leaves turn yellow - this is the result of improper care. Perhaps the soil is not acidic enough. To fix this, you need to add some peat to it. Yellowness may also appear due to the fact that the plant lacks nitrogen. For the same reason, the berries become smaller, the growth of shoots slows down. We talked about the rules for applying nitrogen fertilizers in this article. And red leaves are a clear sign of stem cancer or activation of the process of drying branches.
