Blueberry flowers are drying up or have been eaten

gallak316

Hello fellow gardeners. I am fairly new to blueberry plant and have a couple of questions. My blueberry bushes are just in their second season. The one plant got all kinds of white flowers but now they look like they are drying up or have been eaten. Why would this happen? MY other blueberry bush did not flower this year but the plant looks really good. Any ideas on how I diagnose my problem?

LaurieLovesLearning

@gallak316 First of all, welcome to the forum! When you get a chance, please introduce yourself in the Introductions section found here:

https://community.thegrownetwork.com/categories/introductions

My first thoughts are what zone are you in? Did you have frost? Did you have moderate to high winds? Did you have a storm, rain, hail, (etc.)? All of these affect our blossoms in my area. We actually just got past our short season of these things that in some years, can happen all at once in the short blooming period.

This regular occurrence can affect our apple, black currant & our nanking cherry set, and certainly determines if we get any saskatoons, even if the blossoms were prolific (as they looked this year). This is why a "windfall" harvest is a treasure. It happens rarely due to these factors. Saskatoon bushes are like a gold mine. You never share the location.

Torey

Welcome to TGN's forum @gallak316.

I have two blueberries that were planted last year and a new one this year. One of the two from last year is very sad. No flowers and quite a bit of the branches froze. The other one looks like it may flower but I doubt it will have any fruit as it won't have anything to pollinate it. The new plant was already in flower when it went in so it won't be able to pollinate. Extra fertilizer might be helpful.

As to your plants, I would ask the same questions about your zone and if you have had any out of the ordinary weather conditions. Blueberries do like soil a bit more towards acidic. Sometimes adding peat to the soil can help.

marjstratton

I haven't gotten any blueberry flowers this year and all our apple blossoms were killed by a late freeze.

jowitt.europe

@gallak316 welcome to the forum from me as well.

i have two blueberry plants and I try to give them lots of saw dust from pines, so that they “feel at home” - trying to create the soil like in the forest. They are very moody. Some years we get berries, some none at all. We have lots of birds, so one has to be careful that they do not pick all before us. This year one plant has plenty berries, the second almost none. Why? A big question. I treat them equally.

I am following this discussion as I would like to learn what else could I do.

gallak316

Thanks for the discussion. I like the idea of putting pine needles and adding peat. We are in zone 4. I have them in a nice sunny spot. We live on a lake and had a bit of a flood with all the rain about 3-4 weeks ago. However it did not impact the blueberries...just lots of rain. I do have mulch around my bushes...wondering if I should remove some of it.

kbmbillups1

I have 3 large blueberry bushes that had a bumper crop last year. This year they didn't get near as many flowers, and I've noticed some of the berries are drying up and aren't plumb. The only thing I can think of would be a freeze that would make the flowers fall off. We had a late freeze so that is probably why I don't have as many berries this year. I hoping to get just enough to make some jelly and to fill the shelf in my freezer back up.

It took mine a few years to get going. Hopefully next year you'll get a bumper crop!!