Customary fertilization rate decreases blueberry yields in southern China

Abstract

Blueberry plantation area is expanding rapidly in China due to their high profits. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the fertilization for blueberry in China. hi the study, a field experiment was executed in a commercial orchard of 6-year-old rabbiteye blueberry ('Brightwell') in 2017 and 2018, with four levels of compound fertilizer (N-P2O5-K2O: 15-15-15): 0, 300, 450 or 600 g plant(-1) year(-1). It was found that the yields in 2017 and 2018 were 14.8 similar to 17.4 kg plant(-1) and 13.9 similar to 16.2 kg plant(-1), respectively. The lowest yield was obtained at 600 g treatment, whereas the yield of the 300 g treatment in 2017 and 2018 was the highest and increased by 17.6% and 16.5% compared to the 600 g treatment, respectively. No treatments had significant effect on fruit setting rate and single berry weight. In 2017 and 2018, titratable acid content of blueberry in 600 g treatment was the highest. Total soluble solid content of blueberry under the 300 g treatments was significant higher than other treatments in 2017, but there were no significant differences among treatments in 2018. Therefore, it was concluded that blueberry yield was highest by fertilizing with 300 g plant(-1) year(-1) without fruit quality decreasing, compared to the customary fertilization rate of 600 g plant(-1) year(-1).