I thought blueberries were supposed to be easy!!

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patterntracy Hyde Park, MA May 22, 2010

Does anyone know what's going on with my blueberries? My bushes are well established, and I've never really had a problem in 10 years. I was in my yard today, though, and suddenly noticed that my bushes are looking kind of burnt and...awful. They flowered fine, but many of the flowers are looking like this photo, and obviously aren't turning into berries. Any ideas? We did have very freakishly warm weather for awhile, and then the temps dropped, although I don't think we got another hard freeze again. I don't know if it just got too cold for the new growth? I can live with a bad crop of berries this year (although I'll be very sad about it), but I need to know if it's some sort of disease that will kill my bushes. Thanks for any help you all can give!

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telosphilos Little Elm, TX(Zone 7b) May 23, 2010

I'm not really sure what to tell you. I'd spray for fungal infections and the like. My blueberries get treated with 'Organicide' as an all purpose spray about once sometimes twice a month depending on what's going on.

The bit of hope I can give you is that I did have something like that show up last year and this year they appear to be fine and we will have berries to munch at high summer.

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patterntracy Hyde Park, MA Jun 11, 2010

Thanks telosphilos! After reading your response, I started looking into various fungicides to try, and did some research online to try and figure out what specific fungus I was dealing with....and before I knew it, weeks had passed. I looked at my bushes the other day, and they are LOADED with new growth. I'm happy to say I think they were "burnt" by the frost/cold. Bad news for this year's berries, but such good news for my bushes! And now I know about "mummy berry", the most common fungus in MA for blueberries, which is a handy thing.

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cyclops101 Wakefield, RI Jun 12, 2010

My bushes look the same as yours and I attribute it to frost damage. We live in pretty close proximity with you being further north and you are correct about the warm weather and then the cold temps. The blueberries I have exploded into bloom with those early warm temps and then we had a frost. I live along the coast and generally the ocean moderates the temps but not this year. I read that a temperature of 28F will cause about a 10% kill off in blueberries and a temp of 24F will raise that to 90%. That is a narrow range and I am not sure what happens between 24 and 28F. At my house the temp according to my thermometer was 27F and it is fairly accurate.

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