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The best time to harvest fresh blueberries in Florida is 1 April to 15 May. Weather during this period is normally favorable for harvest: low rainfall, low humidity, warm, sunny days, and cool nights, and supplies of fresh blueberries from other producing areas are low. To ripen high-quality blueberries in April, the plants must flower in February and must have a full canopy of leaves to support the developing crop in March and April. Observations of thousands of blueberry seedlings and selections over the past 25 years in Florida have indicated that blooming and leafing time are affected by the chilling requirement and heat requirement of the variety and also by environmental factors. Factors that increase plant vigor (high soil fertility, ample moisture, and young plants) cause the plants to flower earlier in the spring. Flower buds that do not open by 15 Mar. in north Florida frequently abort. The timing and extent of this physiological bud abortion varies with cultivar. Some southern highbush cultivars leaf before they flower. Others flower before they leaf. The ideal blueberry variety for north Florida would have a very low chill requirement, a high heat requirement to prevent January flowering, and a short flowering-to-ripening interval.
Abstract
Three populations of 2-year-old seedlings of rabbiteye blueberry (Vaccinium ashei Reade) produced by one generation of selfing were compared for seedling survival and vegetative vigor with comparable hybrid populations. Over the 3 populations, the inbred seedlings as compared to hybrids averaged lower in survival (30% vs. 48%), length of 3-tallest shoots (46 vs. 72 cm), and largest-shoot diameter (4.2 vs. 7.2 mm).
Cultivated blueberries (Vaccinium section Cyanococcus species, including lowbush, highbush, and rabbiteye) normally produce flower buds at the end of the growing season; these remain dormant during the winter and give rise to flowers the following spring. However, rabbiteye and low-chill highbush cultivars that are maintained in a state of vigorous growth throughout the winter in an unheated greenhouse in Gainesville in north Florida flower and produce fruit continuously on new growth throughout December, January, and February. The regimen of cool (but not freezing) nights and short, warm days permits the plants to continue growth throughout the winter and results in rapid conversion of newly-formed axillary buds into flower buds. These do not become dormant, but sprout to produce flowers and fruit almost as quickly as they are formed. Extending the photoperiod or raising night temperatures inhibits primocane flowering by allowing the axillary buds to remain vegetative. Primocane flowering, which occurs naturally in highbush blueberry production fields south of lat. 28°N in Florida and at lat. 30°S in eastern Australia, can contribute to an extended harvest season (4 to 8 months per year) from a single cultivar.
Diploid blueberry (Vaccinium section Cyanococcus) was pollinated in a greenhouse in 1981 with pollen from sparkleberry (V. arboreum, Section Batodendron). Cyanococcus parents included V. darrowi, diploid V. corymbosum, and various intra-sectional diploid hybrids. Forty one vigorous seedlings showing characteristics of both sections were selected from a field nursery when 2 ½ years old. Some of these plants flowered heavily in subsequent years, and several were more than 3 m tall by 1990. Although the F1 hybrids had very low fertility, some open-pollinated progeny were obtained. Some of these were vigorous, fruitful when open-pollinated in the field, and intermediate between V. arboreum and Cyanococcus in many features. Six of the best progeny from open-pollination of the F1's were used in greenhouse crosses. Some branches were self-pollinated and some were pollinated with pollen from tetraploid V. corymbosum -based cultivars. Two of the 3 selfed plants had a high percent fruit set (277 fruit from 441 flowers). Four of the six plants pollinated with pollen from tetraploid V. corymbosum cultivars had high percent fruit set (452 fruit from 793 flowers). Flowers of the open-pollinated progeny of the F1 hybrids were much larger than those of the F1 `s. This, along with the fruitfulness after 4× pollination, suggests that at least some of the open-pollinated progeny are tetraploid. These hybrids give hope that sparkleberry genes can be used to improve highbush cultivars.
Breeding to adapt temperate-zone fruit to subtropical production areas has been a formidable objective because so many different characteristics have to be changed, most of which are controlled by many genes. Recurrent selection is the only breeding method that can accomplish the required wholesale reorganization of the physiology of the plant. The principles of recurrent selection, developed and tested using short-generation organisms like fruit flies, rats, and maize, have been applied to the development of low-chill highbush blueberry (V. corymbosum L.) and peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.] cultivars for northern and central Florida. These principles include using many parents per generation of crosses, minimizing the time between cycles of selection, and selecting simultaneously for all heritable traits that are important in the final product, with traits of highest economic importance and highest heritability being given the highest weight in selecting parents. Many characteristics changed during the breeding of low-latitude peach and highbush blueberry cultivars, including chill requirement, photoperiod response, resistance to various disease and insect pests, fruit chemistry, and growth patterns during a long growing season.
Fertility and morphological traits were studied in the F1 and BC1 generations of intersectional crosses between tetraploid highbush blueberry cultivars (Vaccinium section Cyanococcus) and colchicine-induced tetraploid V. arboreum (Vaccinium section Batodendron). The goal of the introgression project was to combine desirable plant characteristics from V. arboreum with the large fruit and high fruit quality of highbush cultivars. Highbush × V. arboreum crosses were hard to make, but large numbers of BC1 seedlings were easily obtained using the most fertile F1 plants as parents in backcrosses to highbush. Anther awns, a character from V. arboreum, were present in all F1 seedlings, but fruit sclerids, another V. arboreum trait, were absent in most seedlings. Berry size in the BC1 generation was twice as large as in the F1 generation and was twice as large in the F1 as in V. arboreum. The BC1 generation was extremely variable in vigor and berry quality. Although berries of most BC1 plants were smaller, darker, and less desirable in texture and flavor than highbush berries, the high fertility of BC1 plants and the high variability among plants indicate that useful clones could be selected or developed by further breeding.
Vigorous, upright shoots on mature V. ashei Reade cv. Aliceblue plants growing in a commercial field planting were used to study the effects of premature defoliation on flower bud formation. Three treatments (total shoot defoliation, alternate-node defoliation, and no defoliation) were applied on each of three dates (20 Aug., 17 Sept., and 15 Oct. 1987). For the August defoliation, the number of flower buds present per shoot on 6 Jan. of the following year averaged 1.3 for shoots that were totally defoliated, 3.7 for shoots on which alternate nodes had been defoliated, and 4.2 for control (nondefoliated) shoots. Shoots treated on 17 Sept. averaged 2.6 buds per shoot for total defoliation, 4.1 for alternate-node defoliation, and 4.8 for controls. Defoliation on 15 Oct. did not reduce flower bud formation. Reduction in flower bud formation due to defoliation was localized at the defoliated nodes. For shoots on which alternate nodes were defoliated on 20 Aug., 59.8% of the apical five nodes that were not defoliated produced flower buds compared with 1.4% of the defoliated nodes.