Vaccinium (genus, blueberry)

Japanese name: ブルーベリー
Scientific name: Vaccinium

[Overview]
A deciduous or evergreen shrub cultivated as a fruit tree.
The leaves are simple and alternate, and turn red in autumn.
The flowers hang downward, urn-shaped to bell-shaped, white to pale pink.
The fruit is a spherical berry that ripens to blue to black.
The cultivars are mainly divided into the highbush group (northern highbush, southern highbush and half-high), the rabbiteye group and the lowbush group.

[History]
In North America it has long been used as food, and breeding progressed from the beginning of the 20th century.
It was introduced to Japan around 1951.

[Uses]
The fruit is eaten fresh or used as a raw material for processed products such as jam.
The leaves and fruit are used medicinally.

[Cultivation]
Propagate by cuttings or grafting.
Suitable planting sites and cultivation methods differ by group, but it prefers sunny, well-drained acidic soil, with a guideline of pH 4.3–4.8 for the highbush group and pH 4.3–5.3 for the rabbiteye group.
It is susceptible to dryness and excess moisture, so plant it where it is not exposed to strong afternoon sun.
The highbush group is self-fertile, but the rabbiteye group yields more when two or more cultivars are planted.
For potted plants, water thoroughly when the soil surface dries; for plants in the ground, rainfall is sufficient unless sunny weather continues and the soil dries out.
Apply organic fertilizer in March before budding, in May at flowering, and from the period when the fruit swells until after harvest.
Scale insects can occur.
Birds also come to eat the fruit, so protect it by covering it with netting or similar.

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