You probably don’t think there’s anything special about picking up a tub of fresh blueberries at the store or the farmers market—the quality of the product, the freshness and the convenience of it all. If only you had to go pick the fruit from the wild yourself!
Up until 1911, blueberries had to be picked from the wild, and bushes were dug from the wild that might or might not survive when transplanted elsewhere. True domestication—reproduction at the will of the grower and breeding to improve desirable traits—was beyond reach until USDA botanist Frederick Coville unlocked a longstanding mystery in 1910.
Coville compared plant growth in alkaline, neutral, and acid soil. By 1908, he had pretty much dropped alkaline soil from testing. He had remarkable success with very-low-pH (or acid) soil. While most plants prefer soil at the neutral pH 7, blueberries only thrive at pH 4.5 to 4.8. That blueberry plants require moist, acid soil was a novel concept at the time and one that Coville, in his later years, would consider his greatest discovery.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: USDA Blog
