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Plants for Florida Blueberry in Agricultural Science Directory

In 1948, University of Florida horticulturist Ralph Sharpe noted that the market for fresh blueberries in the U.S. was expanding rapidly, but that no blueberries were available until late May when harvest began in eastern North Carolina. Sharpe also noted that the wild blueberry ripened in north Florida starting in late April. Although these wild berries had excellent flavor and aroma, the berries were too small and the plants too lowyielding to be cultivated profitably. Commercial blueberry varieties from Michigan, New Jersey and North Carolina survived poorly and produced little fruit when planted in Florida. Florida winters were too warm to satisfy their chilling requirement, and the northern varieties were too susceptible to leaf, root and stem diseases that flourished because of Floridas long, wet summers. After spending two years studying the wild blueberries native to Florida, Sharpe selected the Florida evergreen lowbush blueberry, Vaccinium darrowi, to cross with the northern varieties. During his explorations, Sharpe found some wild blueberry plants growing around a lake near Winter Haven that produced unusually large berries with a powdery blue color, and these plants became the source of the low chilling requirement and heat tolerance of Floridas highbush blueberry varieties. Today, nearly 100 percent of the blueberries harvested in April and early May in the northern hemisphere and during October and early November in the southern hemisphere trace their ancestry back to this Florida lowbush blueberry.

Address: PO Box 110810, Gainesville, FL 32611-0810.
Website: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AG206