BLUEBERRY
Northern Highbush Blueberries:
Early Season Varieties:
Gives middle-size berries, sweet flavour, slightly tart and suitable for transport. Average yield of 8 kg per plant, half of it can be picked up during the first harvest, one of the earliest of all blueberries.
Blooms late (avoids damage from late Spring frosts) but ripens early – after 18th July. Big berries, very tasty, suitable for mechanical harvest, yields up to 6kg per plant.
Average size berries with good taste, suitable both for direct consumption and processing, perfect berries for transporting and freezing. Early cultivar, its fruits ripen from mid-July, highly suitable for mechanical harvesting, extremely appreciated variety due to the regular and high yield.
Very big, tasty and aromatic berries. Fruits start ripening towards the end of July. The yield potential is 4.5-9.0 kg per plant. Regarded as resistant to Phytophthora cinnamomi.
Mid Season Varieties:
New Hanover® cultivar was developed by Jim Ballington from the University of North Carolina. New Hanover® is a mid-season variety requiring 500-600 hours of chilling. It produces remarkably high yields, but that is not its only advantage: the quality of its fruit is also excellent, both in terms of firmness, size and flavour, and shelf life is very good.
Big berries of very good quality, suitable for manual and mechanical harvesting. Very tasty, good for both direct consumption and storing. Fruit ripens at the beginning of August. High yields, 4-9 kg per plant. Very tolerant to late Spring frosts.
Legacy is a very interesting variety - across between Southern and Northern Highbush. It ripens Mid-Late season, the productivity is very high, the berries are consistently medium to large with a very superior flavour and sweetness, and with very good shelf life. The plant is vigorous, upright and with good disease resistance.
Late Season Varieties:
Big berry size. Good for direct consumption and processing. Fruits gathered in big clusters are easy for picking. Consistent and high yields.
Very big berries, tasty and firm. High yields, ripens in 4-6 weeks time.
Requires strong pruning to maintain high quality fruits and a constant high yield. Berries ripen from the beginning of September to mid-October. Perfectly suitable for mechanical harvesting and can be kept long in a cold store; extremely high yielding.
Big, aromatic and tasty fruits, manual harvesting recommended. The berries transport well. Ripening begins in August. worth growing due to its late time of ripening, cold hardiness and good quality fruit.
Southern Highbush Blueberries:
Firm, big, round, blue berries which are very tasty. Chilling time at least 400 hours at the temperature below 7°C. An early cultivar, thoroughly verified, deemed extremely reliable. Until recently considered the most important blueberry cultivar for warm climate.
Alixblue™ cultivar was developed in 2012 by Arlen Draper for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). It combines firmness, good-sized fruit and quality of flavour. 50% of the crop usually ripens a few days before Star. Alixblue™ yields more than Star, and has lower chilling requirements (around 400 hours).