Blueberry leaves reddening?

johnbaron

Hullo all. 

Ive not had much success with blueberries! I had two potted bushes that I had in large 60cm square planters last year which produced fruit then completely died off. When I lifted them they had barely any root system. 

Ive tried again this year and the two bushes are producing fruit but the last week or so the leaves have started to reddened which I thought was a post fruiting winter occurrence. 

They are in ericaceous compost and well fertilised with ericaceous pellets. The soil is moist / damp but not sodden.

Any thoughts? Ta.   

Dovefromabove

One of mine is doing the same .., im wondering whether the low temperatures last week made it think it was autumn?

The other bushes are in exactly the same conditions and aren’t reddening ... that being said the one that is turning does fruit a bit earlier than the others ...

mrtjforman

well you have a decent amount of blueberries especially if it is a relatively young bush. I have lots of different varieties by now, some do better than others some years, then it changes but they seem to respond to feeding a lot.

Feed at the wrong time and you won't get any fruit the next year.

Feed too much potassium and the plant will show a phosphorous deficiency. I mention this because I did this this year. 

So I guessing you either fed the wrong ratio of nutrients like I did or you fed too much. They require very light feeding beginning of spring. Any later and you will promote vegetative growth late in the season which will reduce fruit the following year.

I would not worry about the red too much, what worries me more is the yellowing between the leaf veins. 

Have you been feeding rain water? 

Also as to your last lot dying in winter time, you won't be able to do much if it happens again but if you do plant a new plant, if you add some perlite (available in wilko or certain garden centres) - this will give the soil aeration to stop it getting too soggy in winter so the roots don't rot. Add about 10-20%.

Hope you can sort it. If you did overfeed just try plain rain water for a month and see how it goes

mrtjforman

ok having done a little research I think I have found the culprit based on the fact your last lot died from waterlogged soil.

So your soil is too soggy, this is causing iron to be locked out which is causing the yellowing beween the leaf veins.

You need to add more drainage and water less. In nature organic matter aids with drainage but like said nothing beats perlite.