Blueberries

[spud]

I’m just finishing up in pulling spouts and it’s time to move on to other projects. Last Fall I planted 100 blueberry plants. I spaced them 4 feet apart with 8 feet between rows. I and a friend of mine raked up 40 hefty garbage bags of pine needles and put it around all the plants. Now that spring is here I want to fertilize. I would prefer going to a feed store and buying in the 50 pound bag as apposed to buying two pound bags at a box store. Does anyone have any recommendations as to what to buy? Also how often should I fertilize the plants? Thanks

Spud

[toquin]

Sprinkle a handful of urea around plant, stay outside of root zone. We farm 40@ Spud

[tcross]

my wife and i have a dozen blueberry bushes. we used to use holly tone, but switched to this fox farm product and it works very, very well! we buy ours online, but a lot of ace hardware stores, ag stores and the like carry fox farm products.

https://foxfarm.com/product/happy-frog-acid-loving-plants-fertilizer-4-5-3

[maple flats]

Before you fertilize I suggest you check your PH or did you test before planting? What is your PH? If between 4.3 and 5.2ph you can just use a 10-10-10 or 12-12-12. If between 5.3 and 6.2 use ammonium Sulfate. If over 6.2, you may have problems keeping them able to take up nitrogen, over 6.8 they should be container grown with lots of peat moss.
I have grown 4.5 acres of blueberries since 1982. My natural PH ranged from 5.6-5.9. I first tilled in sulphur dust, then planted the next year.
Your spacing of 4' in row is good, at 8' between you will need to keep the bushes well pruned on each aisle side or you will eventually find it hard to drive between them to mow.
For fertilizer, 50# is way more than what the blueberries should get this year. You want 1 oz per bush this year, in yr 2 do 2 oz/bush and up it each year until year 8 at 8 oz/bush. Then stay with 8 oz/bush/year from there on. Also, you need some epsom salt (magnesium) about 1 oz in year 5, and repeat every 5 years unless a soil test says you have a good magnesium level. Fertilizing timing, you are far enough north that you only want to fertilize in the spring, farther south, like the Jersey Pine Barrens, they split it 1/2 now, 1/2 in June. If we fertilize later in the year, we get too much late season growth which gets lots of winter injury. My Cornell Co-op extension agent, back in the 80's said I would not do as well with urea, it is so strong it burns roots. The ammonium Sulfate is spread over the whole root zone out to the drip line. I use a fertilizer spreader with a banding kit so it throws the fertilizer into the row. Anytime from now til mid May is good to fertilize. In fact even late fall after the bushes have gone dormant is another good time.

[spud]

Thanks everyone for your help. It’s funny because I just had 15 bags of Urea delivered yesterday for my apple trees. I had a soil test done last summer in the area my blueberries are now in. It tested 5.0 PH. I use 10-10-10 on all my apple throughout the season but not in early spring. The nitrogen is the only part that has value to an apple tree before the leaves come. This is what I have been told by orchardist. I do plan to give the blueberries 10-10-10 mid summer but for now I just spread out some Urea an hour ago on all the berry plants. I also fertilized 350 of my apple trees this morning. I have another 100 to do. I also use Urea on my Pear, Plum, Apricot and cherry trees in the early spring. Again thank you everyone for your input. I wish you all much fruit throughout the summer/Fall.

Spud

[tcross]

hope you don't mind me piggy backing your thread Spud?! is it safe to assume that i could transplant a blueberry bush now? or is it too late and should wait till fall? i have one bush that grew way more than all the others... i need to move it.

[wiam]

hope you don't mind me piggy backing your thread Spud?! is it safe to assume that i could transplant a blueberry bush now? or is it too late and should wait till fall? i have one bush that grew way more than all the others... i need to move it.

Should be fine to do it now.

[maple flats]

I agree, just water it well. The roots are not very deep, but the fine roots spread quite wide. If possible dig as wide as the bush is, but about 6" deep should be fine unless it is a mature bush, then you may want 8" deep.