Life span of Blueberry bushes?

[Gem99ultra]

Our crop of blueberry bushes seems to have gotten to old to produce. For the last couple of years the crop has gotten smaller and smaller. At the end of last year they all looked like they were ready for the burn pile. The crop was approximately 15 years old. Is that about normal for blueberry trees/bushes?

Yesterday I pulled them all up with the tractor. Almost all were totally dead and dry rotted. So - we're having the soil retested, and will modify as needed before replanting. Fortunately, we have enough frozen blueberries to hold us for a couple of years. But we're hoping for new production asap.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Interesting. I would have bet soil conditions, but I've never planted blueberries.

 

[woody]

we have bushes that were in the family before I was over 20 years ago now, but they are right beside the garden spot so they get some fertilizer every year.

 

[Oldoak]

Our neighbors blueberry bushes have been producing for much longer than 15 years. The bushes do require pruning by cutting out the center of the bushes right down at ground level every few years. Also blueberry bushes do not like sod growing anywhere near them. Mulching all around them or up and down the rows on both sides of the bushes does wonders.

The wild blueberry bushes on our local mountainsides used to burst forth with large crops of berries about two years after any forest fires that we had. Sort of like a natural pruning process. Of course any fires we have had here over the years were not near as large nor devastating as the forest fires in the western part of our country. The fires, some natural, some man caused, burned off the underbrush and ground clutter without destroying the whole forest.

 

[mapper]

Our blueberry plants are at least 30 years old. I do thin out some of the old wood periodically. A few years ago we had problems with mummy berry, a fungal disease that affects both fruit and wood. We control it by mulching with several inches of alder sawdust every winter. The bushes are thriving and I added garden giant mushroom spawn a couple of years ago so we also harvest a lot of delicious mushrooms from the blueberry patch as well.

 

[Gem99ultra]

Dang it! I'm now thinking that I killed our blueberry trees! I "think" I fertilized them last year with lime; just the opposite of what I should have been using. Sad day around here today. Yeah, I'll admit to the error :-(

I won't make that mistake twice.

 

[Oldoak]

Yes, liming blueberry bushes is a big mistake. They are acid loving plants.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Sounds like you are back on the right path. Having the soil tested (annualized) and then make the corrective measures to get your new plants off to a very good start.

 

[dannoGT]

When we were kids we would pick wild blueberries up in Northern Ontario, Dad was always keeping track of where the forest fires had been in the previous summer because in those places that had been burnt over you would get the best blueberries. I'm guessing it was the ash and lots of bright sun.(no tree cover)