Is your blueberry plant not producing fruits? Are you wondering what time of the year is the harvesting time for blueberry bushes? Do you need two blueberry plants for better production? What can you do to encourage fruiting in your blueberry bush?
When do blueberry plants produce fruit?
Blueberry plants produce blueberries in either early seasons or late seasons. The production of blueberry plants will be somewhere between late May to late August. Moreover, your blueberry plant will need almost three years to produce a good harvest.
It is really important to be aware of the different varieties of blueberry plants and the timeline of producing fruit so that you can take precautions before harvesting.
Seed-grown blueberry plants:
Seed-grown blueberry plants or any type of blueberry plant need enough time to mature fully before producing fruits.
In addition, your seed-grown blueberry plants will need more than two years to fully mature and during this time, the flowers of your blueberry plant should be cut so that the focus is only on the growth of the roots and the foliage of the blueberry plant.
After that, your seed-grown blueberry plants will be ready for harvesting in the early seasons and late seasons. The early seasons consist of harvesting your blueberry fruits from late May to June.
Moreover, the other timeline is from July to late August for late season harvest of your seed-grown blueberry plant.
Blueberry plants from cutting:
When blueberry plants are planted from cuttings, it will take more than three to four months for the roots to properly grow.
After that, depending on softwood cuttings or hardwood cuttings, your blueberry plant will need somewhere between one to two years to fully mature and produce fruit.
Things to know about blueberry fruiting:
It is really important to be aware of the different aspects of your blueberry plants so that you can mold your decisions accordingly in the future.
The months of the year when blueberries produce fruit:
Blueberry fruits need proper times for their maturation before harvesting and therefore the months of the year when blueberries produce fruits is between June and late August.
Some varieties of blueberry bushes may even start to produce as late as late September.
Frequency of fruit production each year:
The frequency of the fruit production of the blueberry plant will depend on the type of blueberry plant you have and will also depend on the soil condition.
In addition, the location or the geographical area will also determine the frequency of blueberry fruiting.
Moreover, to produce fruit, your blueberry bush first needs more than two years to fully grow and it will produce 7 to 9 pints of fruit each year onwards after 3 years.
Amount of blueberries produced from a bush each year:
You can get an abundance of blueberry production from your blueberry bush especially if you provide well-drained, loamy, slightly damp, and nitrogen-filled soil.
By maintaining all these aspects, you can expect Your blueberry bush to produce about 5 to 7 pints or 6 to 8 pounds of blueberries from each bush.
What causes my blueberry bushes not to bear fruit?
Several reasons can contribute to making your blueberry bushes not bear fruit properly. Therefore, being knowledgeable about such reasons will help you to adopt measurable actions.
Faulty soil acidity:
One of the most common reasons why your blueberry bushes are not bearing fruits is due to the lack of acidic soil.
Accordingly, blueberry bushes prefer soil that has more acidic content in it and the PH level should be somewhere between 4.5 and 5.
Therefore, the presence of alkaline in the soil will cause your blueberry bushes to wilt and wither away.
This is why it is important to add coffee grounds, organic mulch, decomposed compost, and so on to increase the acidity level of your blueberry bushes’ soil.
Lack of pollination:
Another reason why your blueberry bushes aren’t fruiting is due to the lack of pollination.
In addition, there must be other blueberry bushes available in the garden so that cross-pollination can happen. Cross-pollination is important in making sure that your blueberry bushes will bear fruit.
This is because, despite the fact that male and female parts of a blueberry flower coexist in the same plant, a pollinator or medium is still needed for proper pollination.
This will thus ensure fruit production of blueberry bushes. However, the lack of pollinators is another reason for the lack of fruit in blueberry bushes.
Moreover, the usage of chemicals and pesticides in different flowers can also cause a lack of the number of pollinators which is why it causes your blueberry bush not to bear fruit.
The cold temperature is another reason why a lack of pollination can occur because pollinators don’t really try to pollinate during this harsh weather.
Lack of pruning:
The lack of pruning can also cause your blueberry bush to not produce any fruit. This is because regular pruning is really important to make sure your blueberry plant grows more elaborately and produces more harvests.
In addition, if old diseased leaves are not pruned regularly, these will infect healthy parts of the blueberry bush and stop the production of blueberries.
Moreover, this is why it is important to make sure that you prune 20% of the plant. While pruning the blueberry bushes, you need to prune a mixture of both old leaves and new leave.
It is also important to not over-prune your blueberry bushes as it will also lead to defective blueberry growth.
Birds consuming blueberries:
Another reason why you are not witnessing any fruit production from the flowers of blueberry bushes is due to the fact that birds like to devour blueberries off of small blueberry plants before you have a chance to witness the fruit production.
Lack of light:
Blueberry bushes especially need full direct sunlight for them to bloom. Both partial sunlight and shade situations will cause a lack of yielding fruits of your blueberry bush.
This is why the blueberry bushes need to be presented with six hours of direct sunlight every day to allow them to bloom abundantly.
Lack of water intake:
Another reason why your blueberry bushes aren’t bearing fruit is due to the improper watering system. Your blueberry bushes will need well-drained and loamy-conditioned soil.
And if the soil is overwatered or underwatered, then the above-mentioned condition won’t be achieved and your blueberry bushes will not bear fruit.
Tips for encouraging fruiting on blueberry bushes:
Planting blueberry bush is not going to be enough rather you need to take proper care of it for encouraging fruiting.
Therefore, being knowledgeable about the tips for encouraging fruiting on your blueberry bushes will help you to mold your decisions accordingly.
Usage of mulch:
One of the things that you can do for encouraging fruiting on your blueberry bushes is regarding the usage of organic mulch.
If you use organic mulch, it will help to keep the surface level of the blueberry bush very moist and well-drained.
Blueberry bushes seem to have shallow roots and the usage of organic mulch will add nutrients, organic matter, and so on.
The addition of mulch to encourage fruiting will also remove any kind of weeds from growing and thus will also lessen the pest-related issues.
Proper pollination:
Pollination is really important for encouraging fruiting in your blueberry bush and to do this, you need to plant two or more blueberry plants together for proper cross-pollination.
You can also plant a lot of flower plants around your blueberry bushes so that pollinators like bees can be attracted to pollinate your blueberry bushes for encouraging fruiting.
Proper sunlight:
You should not ever put your blueberry bushes in partially shaded or shaded areas as this will not encourage fruiting.
This is why you need to make sure to let your blueberry bush have 6 or 7 hours of sunlight under a clear sky to encourage fruiting.
Do you need two blueberry bushes to produce fruit?
You do not need to have two blueberry bushes to produce fruits especially if there are enough pollinators available around your garden to pollinate blueberry flowers to produce fruits.
However, this isn’t always the case. This is because there are very less pollinators visible nowadays due to the chemicals and pesticides that are used on flowers or plants.
In such a situation, a blueberry plant that has both male and female parts inside the blueberry flower will need the support of a pollinator to produce fruit.
This is why it is important to plant two or more blueberry bushes so that it assists in cross-pollination and thus help with producing fruits.
Final Thoughts
Blueberry plants produce fruits in either early seasons or late seasons. If the production is during the early season, it will be from May to June and the late season production will come from July to late August. Nevertheless, your blueberry plant will need almost 3 years to produce a good harvest.