SEED SET, FRUIT WEIGHT, AND YIELD IN HIGHBUSH (VACCINIUM CORYMBOSUM L.) BLUEBERRY CULTIVARS ‘DUKE’ AND ‘BLUECROP’

Growers often question whether small berry size is related to poor pollination and whether it is indicative of reduced yields.
To answer this, yields and berry weights of two standard highbush blueberry cultivars, ‘Duke’ and ‘Bluecrop’, were evaluated for 3 (or more) harvests each season over ten years, and seed set was evaluated at each harvest over the last four.
Across 10 years, yield and berry weight had no significant correlation.
There was, however, indications of a relationship between seed/gfw and total yield.
For the four years in which replicated seed counts were made, we found, in general, that for ‘Bluecrop’, berry weight and number of seeds/berry decreased linearly between first and third harvests.
More importantly, berries with similar seed numbers varied in as weight as much 39% between years.
Hence, reduced berry weight was not necessarily due to poor pollination.
In ‘Duke’, results were erratic and berries with similar seed numbers varied in weight as much as 86% between years.

IX International Vaccinium Symposium

M.K. Ehlenfeldt, R.B. Martin Jr.

overcropping, pollination, source, sink

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.810.8