Blueboy,

Looking good:) Do you see the difference in the growth style and pattern between the just fruits sweetcrisps and the FHN sweetcrisps? It is night and day......not sure what variety those plants are from FHN but they are not sweetcrisps. The lankiness of the sweetcrisps is pretty unique. I know you had said you were going to call the guy from FHN, did you?

Very nice blueboy.From what I've read,Rabbiteyes can get very big.I'll have to see if they will grow in my area.
I have one Sweetcrisp?left out of three from FHN.Now I'm wondering if they have a license to grow and sell them. Brady

Brady,

You don't need a license from the patent holder to sell them just to propagate them. The BB from FHN are tissue culture plants probably from Agri Starts which is in central Florida so he probably buys many trays of them from the producer that is licensed. The cost though of the newly patented varieties is much more than the older patented varieties and some are not patented at all and they are much cheaper yet. Now did FHN buy a non patented variety and market them as Sweetcrisps..OR was it an honest mistake on his part OR a mistake from the producer? Who knows. I sure would like to see a copy of the invoice from FHN stating he bought those XXX amount of trays of sweetcrisps from the tissue culture supplier. Buying non patented starts and marketing them as a new variety that is popular is a good way to make money....also a felony (not saying he did that of course). If people complained to the state of Florida they could subpoena his records.

The prices of the tissue culture plants is $1.10 for the less popular and non patented.....$1.37 for others and the patented popular varieties like sweetcrisp is $1.53 per plant.

It might be wise to sample fruit before jumping on FHN too hard. I know I started the questioning of identity of Sweetcrisp from FHN. But that was to alert people to a potential mixup. I'm not sure yet that anything is wrong with my order.

I'm sure the fruit from the plants will be fine.....they just are not sweetcrisps. The plant growth is wrong, the style of growth is wrong, the calyx is wrong. Look at his pictures above..look at the style of growth from the FHN plants and the Just fruit plants.....WORLDS apart.

The plants look great Blue, very healthy. Weird to see berries on your plants when mine don't have a single leaf on them!
RM

Thanks for the replies,

Bam, I never did call them. Im gona wait and see what the plant looks like after this growing season and then make my judgment. After looking closely at the leafs they seem to have the same characteristics. The growth pattern looks different but that may be the the differences between a culture grown plant and rooted cutting plant too. Ive still got my fingers crossed!

Brady, if your in zone 8 you can grow all kinds of Rabbiteyes.

My opinion about FHN is that someone should contact them and let them know about what has been discovered and posted on this forum.It might be they are innocent and received a different batch of plants.If they do know,then something can be done on their end.There are probably many more people who are buying their plants,since they advertise at least on Ebay.
I will probably call them next week if I don't read that someone else has.
It's kind of unusual that I haven't seen a Rabbiteye at any nursery in the Seattle area.I guess they figure the plants won't do well and stock the Northern Highbush and a few Southern Highbush.No harm in trying I guess. Brady

Brady, a couple hours ago I emailed FHN and informed them about the concernes that have been expressed on this forum. I also asked if they could email me proof that what they are selling and advertising is actually sweetcrisp. I let them know that they could loose 1000s of peoples business just from this forum alone if they are indeed selling the wrong plants. If they can prove that they are sweetcrisp, which I think they have a liability to do so, then I will convey the proof on this forum to ease everyones mind. If they cannot provide proof then that may be the elephant in the room that everyone is looking for. We shall see!

These look good. I had always viewed blueberries as northern fruit. So interesting that you are growing them in Zone 9.

Thanks Mark, I think Ive good luck so far. My plants are still very young though. I planted the bigger plants Feb2011 so this is the first spring Ive fruited any of them. We will see how they fare over the next few years.

FHN emailed me back. They wanted my invoice number and pics of the plants. They said if they did send the wrong plants that they would refund my money and send me replacement plants free of charge. I didnt have my invoice number but I did give them my mailing info so they can find me in there computer system. I also emailed them pics of the plants they sent me plus some pics of the sweetcrisp from JF&E. I dont think that they are willing to provide proof that they are sweetcrisp. At least thats the vib I got from the email. I dont know man!