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Planting and caring for blueberries in the Urals has its own characteristics. The success of cultivation will depend on the correct choice of variety and planting. It is important to carry out agrotechnical procedures - watering, fertilizing, weeding, pruning. The berry will delight caring gardeners with a good harvest.
How blueberries grow in the Urals
Currently, there are more than 700 varieties of blueberries. Most of them can withstand low temperatures -36...-38°C. There are heat-loving varieties that cannot withstand frosts below -24°C. They were obtained in America, Florida. Such varieties are grown in the Urals, covering each bush with spruce branches and covering them with snow when it falls. Some gardeners plant heat-loving blueberries in tubs and, when frost sets in, hide them in clumps.
The best blueberry varieties for the Urals
Despite the wide variety of modern blueberry varieties, frost-resistant varieties are suitable for growing in the Urals.
What varieties of blueberries are best to grow in the Urals
When choosing a blueberry variety for the Urals, you need to take into account not only the quality of the fruit, yield and disease resistance, but also the frost resistance zone. Six varieties of the High Blueberry species are included in the State Register, recommended for cultivation in all regions of Russia:
- "Bluecrop" – a variety of medium ripening, medium height.
Dark blue berries with a dessert taste, weighing up to 1.9 g. Easily tolerates frosts down to -25°C. In cold winters it needs insulation.
- "Huron" – universal-purpose berries are not very sweet, weighing up to 2.6 g.
The shoots are light green, pubescent, and the bush is tall. Tolerates frosts down to -25°C.
- "Duke" - a medium-sized, semi-spreading bush with straight, pubescent shoots of greenish-red color.
The harvest ripening period is early. The berries are flattened, blue, weighing up to 2.9 g. The taste of blueberries is sweet and the aroma is pleasant. Damaged at temperatures below -30°C.
Varieties "Liberty", "Aurora", "Draper" in the Urals they can only be grown in greenhouses or containers, as they cannot tolerate frosts below -20°C.
Varieties of the bog blueberry type are suitable for the Urals; they tolerate frosts down to -42°C and are disease resistant. The following are included in the State Register:
- "Blue Scatter";
- "Graceful";
- "Iksinskaya";
- "Nectar";
- "Wonderful";
- "Taiga Beauty";
- "Shegarskaya"
- "Yurkovskaya".
The berries of the listed varieties are approximately two times smaller than those of the High Blueberry; they are not as sweet, but healthy and aromatic.
Planting blueberries in the Urals
For planting and growing blueberries in the Urals, seedlings with closed roots are purchased. 2-3 different varieties are planted on the site for cross-pollination.
Recommended timing
Seedlings with a closed root system can be planted in the Urals during the growing season. They best tolerate replanting to a permanent location in August, when there is no extreme heat, and in the spring, in May.
Site selection and soil preparation
Blueberries love sunny, well-lit places, protected from cold winds. The acidity of the soil for growing should be pH 4.5-5. The plant feels better in sandy loam soil than in clayey, heavy soil. When planting, acidic peat, rotted sawdust and pine litter are added directly into the hole.
Blueberry roots live in symbiosis with mycorrhiza, a special fungus that helps the plant absorb water and nutrients. Only an acidic soil environment is suitable for mycorrhiza. Therefore, a bush planted in ordinary garden soil with neutral acidity stops growing and soon dies.
How to plant blueberries in the Urals
In gardens nearby grow crops with different requirements for soil and care. Blueberries are different from most garden crops. Description of planting blueberry seedlings in the Urals in spring:
- The seedling is soaked in water for 3-4 hours, freed from the container.
- Prepare a hole with a diameter of 40 cm and 50 cm in depth.
- Black sour peat is poured onto the bottom and mixed with rotted sawdust. Fill the hole to 1/3 of the height.
- The soil of the site is fenced off from the contents of the hole in which the blueberries will grow. This can be done using boards, logs, polypropylene bags without a bottom, or thick plastic, which is sold in garden centers.
- The fence is installed along the outer diameter of the pit to create a partition that separates two layers of soil - outer and inner.
- The root of the seedling is slightly kneaded without destroying the earthen lump entangled in small roots.
- Water the hole and place a seedling in the center.
- The empty space is filled to the top with sour red peat, lightly compacted, then watered.
- Mulch the tree trunk circle with a 4 cm layer of pine litter, then cover it with straw to protect it from drying out. Water the seedling again from above over the straw and leaves.
When planting, do not add manure or ash.
Growing blueberries in the Urals
There are several ways to plant blueberries in the Urals. They are divided into industrial and private, for small garden plots. In a large field, there is no need to fence each bush separately, because they all grow as a monoculture and help each other.
The plant is propagated by layering. To do this, bend the side branch to the ground and dig in with soil, leaving the top on the surface. In one and a half to two years, a new bush will grow from the cuttings, which can be separated with pruning shears and planted in a new place.
Watering and fertilizing schedule
After planting blueberries in the Urals, according to gardeners, care comes down to regular watering. It is especially important during the phase of flower bud formation. The formation of buds for future fruiting occurs in July-August. If the plant does not have enough nutrition and water during this period, there will be no harvest.
For normal blueberry growth in the Urals, it is necessary to acidify the soil in which it grows in spring and autumn. For this purpose, colloidal sulfur is used. It is scattered in the amount of 2 tbsp. l.under each bush, and cover with a layer of mulch.
In order for blueberries to please with the harvest and grow well, in addition to maintaining the required level of soil acidity, fertilizing is important. There are specialized mineral fertilizers with a high sulfur content, for example, Florovit. Feed the plant in early May.
Loosening and mulching the soil
The best mulch, which further increases the acidity of the soil, is pine litter. But you can use coconut fiber and hay for this.
Under a layer of mulch, mycorrhiza reproduces more intensively. The nutrition of blueberries improves, and they change before our eyes - the shoots become powerful, the leaves are shiny and juicy with a bright green color. The yield and size of berries increases. Such a plant will be able to successfully withstand frost, drought, high humidity and other unpleasant weather conditions.
Weeds are pulled out around blueberries; they take away 30% of its moisture and nutrition if they grow close to the tree trunk. Green manure is planted in the spaces between the rows:
- vetch-oat mixture;
- buckwheat;
- phacelia.
Then, before flowering, the green manure is pulled out and covered with a layer of straw on top. If you plant buckwheat between the rows, it will suppress the growth of weeds through its root secretions, destroying blueberry competitors for food.
Trimming
In the Urals, blueberries are pruned every year closer to spring, in February-March, before the buds open. Old bushes are rejuvenated by cutting out old branches that are more than 2-3 cm in diameter at the base. They try not to leave branches older than four years old on blueberries. On old shoots the bark is dark, the fruits ripen small.In addition, all diseased branches that thicken the crown are cut out. After pruning, many annual shoots will emerge from the base of the bush.
Before you start pruning, carefully inspect the blueberry bush and then cut out the shoots:
- weak and thin;
- broken;
- growing inside the bush;
- old, with brown, flaky bark.
How to prepare blueberries for winter in the Urals
If planted incorrectly in neutral soil, blueberries freeze in winter even in the Southern Urals. A healthy plant is not afraid of frost and remains intact at -32°C. Only late spring frosts are dangerous for berries.
Pests and diseases
The larvae of the cockchafer can seriously damage blueberry bushes in the Urals. If the bushes begin to dry out for no apparent reason, you need to check for the presence of the pest in the soil. When raking the ground under dried blueberries, you can find large white beetle larvae that look like thick caterpillars.
In household plots, blueberries damaged by Khrushchev are treated with Anti-Khrushch or Aktara. During the season, blueberries are sprayed four times with a preparation against beetle larvae. To prevent the spread of the pest, before planting blueberries, the biological preparation Metarizin is added to the soil.
The mole cricket is also a danger to blueberries. She chews out the roots. You can bring the mole cricket to the site along with peat. They destroy insects by placing bait - bottles of beer or sweet syrup are buried in the ground up to the neck. The mole cricket gets inside, but can’t get out.
Another pest is hares. In winter, blueberry branches are a delicacy for them.To protect the site, you will have to get a large dog and repair the fence so that hares cannot enter the garden.
Blueberries have strong immunity and are rarely affected by diseases. If basic agrotechnical requirements are met during planting and cultivation, the crop will safely withstand frost and bad weather.
Yellowing of blueberry leaves indicates chlorosis. This means that the plant does not absorb iron and lacks nitrogen. To successfully treat chlorosis, it is necessary to acidify the soil with an electrolyte or sulfur.
Redness of the leaves is a lack of phosphorus and other trace elements. To eliminate the problem around the bush, you need to pour 2-3 shovels of vermicompost, acidify the soil with electrolyte, and cover the tree trunk circle on top with straw. Recovery will occur in 2-3 weeks, the leaves will become bright green.
Weakened blueberries in the Urals can be affected by some fungal, bacterial and viral diseases. The most common include:
- gray rot – manifests itself in redness of leaves, stems, flowers and fruits, then a gray coating appears;
- physalosporosis – in autumn, swollen reddish spots appear on young shoots, which then turn into wounds;
- double spot – in spring, small brown spots appear on the leaves, increasing over time;
- stem cancer – leads to the death of shoots;
- fruit moniliosis – the bushes seem damaged by frost;
- white spot – white, gray or yellowish spots 5 mm in diameter appear on the leaves.
To treat fungal diseases, universal drugs are used - Bordeaux mixture, Topsin and Euparen.
You can learn more about how to properly plant and care for blueberries in the Urals from the video.
Conclusion
Planting and caring for blueberries in the Urals will bring pleasure to attentive gardeners. Blueberries are not only a healthy delicious berry. This is a beautiful plant with shiny leaves and bell-shaped white flowers. It will fit perfectly into any landscape composition.
