Blueberry growers and consumers alike stand to benefit from Gupton and Pearl, two new southern highbush cultivars developed by Agricultural Research Service researchers in Poplarville, Mississippi. In addition to high yields of plump, flavorful berries and vigorous growth, the new cultivars should give southern growers a jump on the lucrative early-ripening fresh market, which starts in April and May.
“There’s been limited acreage of southern highbush blueberries because their lack of vigor has made them difficult to grow. However, we’ve overcome that problem to a large extent by developing hybrids from crosses made among southern highbush germplasm showing greater adaptation to the southeastern United States,” says Stephen Stringer, a geneticist at ARS’s Thad Cochran Southern Horticulture Laboratory in Poplarville.
Gupton and Pearl, released in 2006 and 2010, respectively, are finding their way into crop fields and nurseries as more propagative material becomes available from tissue-culture operations and softwood cuttings.
“Several nurseries have requested Pearl, and there are some growers in Mississippi who have Gupton in small plots in their fields. Gupton’s also being evaluated in some trials in North Carolina and other southern states and is looking very good,” reports Stringer. He collaborated on the cultivars’ development and testing with ARS horticulturists Donna Marshall and James Spiers (retired) and ARS small-fruits breeder Arlen Draper (retired).
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