ABSTRACT
Blueberry is a high value crop which can thrive on acidic, imperfectly drained sandy soils, that might otherwise be considered worthless for agricultural crop production, and North America is the major producer of blueberries. Generally, cultivated blueberries belong to the section Cyanococcus of the genus Vaccinium of the heath family Ericaceae (Galletta and Ballington 1996). Species within this section are often called the “true” or cluster-fruited blueberries (Camp 1945). Wild representatives of Cyanococcus are found solely in North America (Hancock and Draper 1989). Blueberry species are also commonly grouped according to stature and referred to as the lowbush, highbush, and rabbiteye types. Lowbush plants are rhizomatous with stems from 0.30 to 0.60 m; highbush plants are crown forming and generally maintained between 1.8 and 2.5 m; rabbiteye plants are crown forming, but also are notable for suckering to varying degrees, and maintained between 2.0 and 4.0 m (Hancock and Draper 1989; Galletta and Ballington 1996). Of the major fruit crops, blueberry has been domesticated most recently, during the 20th century.
