Madeline Blueberry Seeds

Dry Soil Type of Wild Blueberry Selected from a High and Dry Location with Heavy Yields of Small Dark Blue Fruit

This natural hybrid of a low and high bush wild blueberry was found on a mound of sand in central Michigan at my families first farm. The discovery was a non discovery type of scenario where the plant kept spreading despite the best intentions of keeping it mowed down to prevent it from growing into a farm road way. I finally took a few pieces of the stolons to my tree crop farm. The original plant rarely had any fruit on it.  I planted it on a hill that had little vegetation and a sand base to it. As the bush matured the fruit quantity increased dramatically. The fruit production is under the leaves protecting it from predation. The plants are now thriving being on a sandy hillside on what would be considered the opposite of almost all cultivated blueberries-sand and toasty hot.

"Madeline" is a small fruited but incredibly productive and delicious dark blue almost black blueberry with a rich strong flavor. By itself it is self fertile and spreads slowly outward in kind of a multi-stemmed clone. Grown from seed you can make your own selection from this self pollinating plant as well as a population of wild dryland type of blueberries.  It is not hard to do really. This selection allows blueberries to be grown in places where most blueberries just would not survive without irrigation and acidifying the soil. This is the most adaptable blueberry and could be grown in new locations outside of normal blueberry cultivation. Plus the flavor is by far the richest and darkest blue which is much like the wild Maine and Michigan blueberries.  Madeline provides both a cultivar level plant as well as a varietal level selection that can easily be rooted in situ as the plants spreads slowly outward. Pruning is necessary to some extent to allow greater light penetration within the thick canopy of this variety of which the berries are found underneath the branches hidden from view. (This is the opposite of almost all named varieties of blueberries.)  This prevents bird predation. Berries ripen over a month period starting the first of July. 

Here is how to grow it from seed:  Sprinkle the seed in a flat filled with a smooth flat surface of peat moss and sand soil mix. Lightly cover the seeds with sand just enough to hold them in place. Put outside or store in a polyhouse all winter. The cold weather will naturally stratify the seeds for 60-90 days. Seedlings emerge slowly as spring progresses over a two month period. These can be plucked out (note: they are very tiny) and put in pots or kept in the flat for one full year before transplanting.  It often takes two years to really pop the seeds because of the hard seed coat. 

Another method is to put the seeds in a bag of half and half sand and peat moss. Store for 90-120 days in the fridge from 33-38F . After the cold period, sprinkle the mixture on top of a flat or plant outdoors in a protected spot. Blueberry seeds are slow at first and require both scarification by the natural soil bacteria as well as cold dormancy.