Thank you Brady for answering all of my blueberry questions.I can't wait for the blueberries to sprout. I will keep you posted about my project. I wouldn't use the sulfate either. Since my backyard is a wildlife habitat I will probably cover half of the bushes for me and leave the other half uncovered for the birds and wildlife.

I grow Maine wild blueberries, about 4 ac. Best production is on a every other year prune. You can flail mow to 1 inch or burn to a light white ash. Burning is more expensive because it either uses oil or spreading straw, burning fire lines and a crew to burn safely. I have many strains of berries in my field from sky blue to black (the black ones are the sweetest, the medium blue the most marketable.) The way blueberries are packed (rake to bucket to box to culling belt to freezer to bag) you are likely to have many strains in any given bag. Wild blueberries spread by ryzones much like strawberry runners under ground and we plant plugs in an 8"x8" pattern and wood chip mulch between.It takes about 6 years to have a full carpet. (bigger plugs faster fill) I also sell some sod taken in 6" strips from thick patches to landscapers for people who want instant berry patches. I use about 10'x10' every year for home use, jam jelly pies and pancakes. you would need more if you want juice also.

Smoke makes me nauseous and it seems difficult so mowing is probably what I'll do.

We have several lowbush varieties, along with both highbush and half-high blueberries. The lowbush have similar requirements for sun, soil pH, and moisture. The main issue is that you need to be two feet tall in order to pick the fruit without stooping. Lowbush varieties have one big advantage over the taller shrubs. They are routinely snowed under in the winter, which goes a long way to protect the shrub from browsing rabbits and deer. Also moose, if you live in Maine or Canada...I believe that the extensive lowbush blueberry beds in Maine are harvested by machine, a type of rotating horizontal brush mounted on a tractor. After harvest, the entire bed is mowed down, and allowed to lie fallow for a season, so the shrubs can recover. Then the process repeats, so there will be a harvest event every other year. It is not actually necessary to mow down your lowbush blueberry shrubs, they do fine with a little pruning now and then. In the landscape scene, they would be described as groundcover. These are pretty tough plants, better able to survive a dry spell than the highbush shrubs. If you can get the pH down to 4.5 or so, a typical shrub might produce 1/2 cup of fruit.

I burn on a 6 year rotation. Burning controls ticks,weed seeds and other problems as well as most pesticides do. I realy don't like the smoke either. I mow before I burn and wait a week to burn. This gives me about an 80% free burn and I only have to spot spread straw to finish the field. Eric this is not ment to be critical at all but I would discribe a harvester more completely. A backwards turning waterwheel with the bottom of the buckets made of 100 or more long curved tines. AS it rotates it scoops under the bush and rakes the berries. when it passes the top it dumps the berries in a shoot to a 1/2 bu box. A rider on back moves the boxes as the fill and sets them off when he has filled the platform. The reason for the small quantity is a crushing problem not figured out yet in a hopper. Please someone figure that out to save us a lot of stops to load and unload boxes. Flash freezing sounded good but leaves stick to berries and berries clump on culling belts.

ravenh2001, thanks for posting the description of a harvester for lowbush blueberries. I have never seen one up close, only a picture on the computer screen. The fruit from your part of the country is sold here in Madison, in 3 lb bags,frozen.

Ravenh2001- how are the black ones called? As a small child I picked them in the Upper Peninsula of MI, and we called the black blueberries 'blackberries', but they were blueberries. The black were far and away better than the other blueberries. I have never enjoyed a store bought blueberry after those blueberries. Where can the rhizomes purchased and transplanted as you mention, like sod? Does that work well?

I guess that being 2 feet high harvesting was much more convenient at that age but there seemed to be MUCH more than 1/2 cup per plant in good years:)

Eric, where did berries your seed come from in Madison?

The link has some interesting remarks about cuttings not spreading via rhizomes and seedlings obviously being variable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lowbush blueberry breeding

midlin Don't you even think of raiding my black blueberry patch for plugs. I work with a landscaper who takes 6" strips 24"apart. He pay's 3.00 per sq foot of turf and fills in with wood chips. y turf graces Noni fords and David rock or whatever estates. Thank you for the spelling mistake on the root thing. The black berries go to Hostess for the best tarts. Looking out the window there is 2' of snow on the fields but the freezer has blueberrys for pancakes.