Research at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) is devoted to helping blueberries continue to thrive as a ‘super food’.
On April 26, UGA CAES Dean and Director Nick Place formally inaugurated the new blueberry orchard at the UGA Durham Horticulture Farm in Watkinsville, Georgia, close to the main Athens campus. Place planted the first blueberry bush to honor the potential that this new research orchard provides for meeting the needs of Georgia’s blueberry producers.
“This is a huge step toward increasing our ability to provide robust, timely, science-based solutions to our blueberry growers,” UGA blueberry entomologist Ashfaq Sial, who is based on the UGA Athens campus, told vscnews.com.
Georgia ranks among the top states in planted acreage. Its blueberry crop brings more than $220 million annually to the state’s economy. This new orchard contains 1,000 new bushes of five rabbiteye cultivars that were selected based on recommendations by UGA blueberry breeder Scott Nesmith. These varieties have characteristics that make them more suitable to the Piedmont region of the state and include the cultivars ‘Alapaha’, ‘Brightwell’, ‘Ochlockonee’, ‘Krewer’ and ‘Titan’.