Rich:

The limiting factors for new cane growth are usually nitrogen, pH, and water. High pH shows up as chlorotic leaves. Lack of nitrogen is light green leaves and lack of new growth. Lack of water often results in brown and fallen leaves and growth stops.

Your description sounds like you need to step up the nitrogen next year. Ammonium sulfate, 21-0-0, or a complete fertilizer for acid loving plants will work well if applied in small doses at frequent intervals.

Hi Rich,
How did the roots look when planting them,were they well developed?I haven't tried MirAcid,but there's a lot of people that do.A little Ammonium Sulfate,maybe mix about 1 tablespoon in about 3 gallons of water starting next spring in weekly intervals may help with the vegetative growth.I think they're probably still getting used to their new home.Brady

Keep roots cool and moist with pine/barkmulch. Apply ammonium sulfate at budbreak. Get 'Legacy', Elliott, and Aurora. Pick from July to October. Bluecrop and Blueray are sisters.
Know your water/soil ph.
Don't overwater. Just the top 2-18".
Noogy

My experience has been that a blueberry transplant will double or even triple in size during the first growing season. I am not sure why you are not seeing this kind of growth. I would guess that in a very general way, more plants are damaged by too many chemical additions than by too few chemical additions. I don't know the pH of your native soil, and I don't know the pH of the water you are using for irrigation. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, our soil has pH around 7.6, and our tap water has the same pH. With some effort, I can keep the soil pH around our blueberry shrubs in the range of 4 to 5.5. I aim for pH = 4.5, but its a moving target. When the pH is right, and the soil has some moisture, and the sun shines, then the blueberry shrubs will thrive.

There is some good advice here from others.

My plants went in this spring at about a foot tall and are probably about three feet tall now and two feet wide. I am convinced now that where you obtain your plants is very important. All of my plants from one course grew well while nearly all of the others from a second source grew poorly.

RM

I have read and heard that with blueberries, potted is a huge advantage over bare root, and bare root will take a much bigger transplant shock. From what I have read, you should have 1' of new cane growth the first year, otherwise, something is wrong with growing conditions.

I planted a bunch of small potted 2 year plants from heartland blueberries (only $6-$7 each), and 16/20 lived and grew from about 6" tall in spring to about 1.5' tall now. New canes grew about a foot average.

I also planted (4) 3 year 1 gallon potted from him, which were trimmed back to 1' tall when I planted, and they grew 2.5-3' each. All have abundent fruiting buds already.

I used 1 heaping tablespoon am. sulfate every month for 3 months during the growing season, as others have talked about here.

The plants that did the best for me this year were also from Heartland. They were bareroot when I got them and to be honest quite pitiful looking but they did grow pretty well this summer. The plants that did poorly for me I purchased at a local nursery and they were potted and quite large, maybe 3' tall. To this day most still look bad, no idea what's wrong with them.

RM

About 15 years ago I bought some potted blueberry shrubs that looked neglected, but they were marked down & I thought I could nurse them back to health. I think that they had been allowed to get too dry. I could get them to grow, but they never thrived. I guess that they were permanently damaged, before I got them.

Thanks for all of the great advice. One point of clarification - I also used Espoma Holly Tone early in the season. Sorry I forgot this in the original post.

The plants were from DiMeo farms here in NJ, but if given a choice I wouldn't buy from them again. The roots were heavily pruned prior to shipping, but this may have been OK; it's my first experience with blueberries so I don't really have a point of reference for comparison.

I am dead-set on using Ammonium Sulfate next year. I would have done it this year, but couldn't find anything locally except for Aluminum Sulfate, which I have seen on here enough to know I should avoid it. Home Depot supposedly stocks Shultz 21-0-0, but they never seem to know about it when I ask. Any chance there's someone in NJ who knows where I can find it? If not, does anyone know of a reasonable mail-order provider? Thanks again for the guidance.

It sounds to me like you are doing things right. I have had varying results with my 60+ bushes. I have some from a reputable grower highly spoken of on here that I think got stunted from cold weather soon after setting them out that were five years old and still only a foot high before they started to grow much. I have others that have nearly doubled in size in a year, though that is not the norm this far north. If yours are in full sun, I would expect them to take off next year. Be sure to keep them well watered, because growth shuts down when water stressed. Northwoodswis

RJ,

I also could only find AL sulfate locally, and the guy was trying to push it on me, I was told that am. sulfate was the bomb making stuff, but I also read to not use AL sulfate. I got it on ebay, 25 lb for about $28 delivered, and it appears 25 lb will feed my 24 bushes a few years. They put it on sale for 10% off every once in a while, actually, it is 10% off now. Item 350334656242

I use agricultural sulfur for lowering soil pH. This material requires bacterial action, so an application will take a year or two to be fully dissolved and converted into acid. I can find it locally in 50 pound bags, but I have to go to a farmer's co-op out of town.

I think Ammonium Nitrate is the chemical of choice for the fertilizer/fuel bombs.

Since I'd expect the normal soil pH in central New Jersey to be around 5, I'm very curious about what the starting pH of the soil was.

I'd be careful using either ammonium sulfate or sulfur in situations where pH is already 5 or below. There's a reason ammonium sulfate is hard to find in humid climates with low pH soils. It's not appropriate in those conditions. Urea would be a better choice because it doesn't lower pH as much.

Thanks for the info. on Ammonium Nitrate vs. ammonium sulfate, Bradybb, you are right. I just read about it online, they actually mix am. sulfate in with am. nitrate to make it non explosive, the guy at my local agway was mixed up!

I cant get agricultural sulfur locally, also have not found online, home depot had a couple of 5# bags of 25% sulfer, and now they switched to a less powerfull, more expensive product that is only 5% sulfer, if I remember right.

Agricultural sulfur is used by farmers who grow alfalfa, year after year, in the same field. Eventually, this crop pulls the native sulfur from the top 10 inches of soil, and it becomes depleted. I suspect that soybeans would have the same result, eventually. Around here(Madison, Wisconsin) it sells for 90 cents per pound, in 50 lb bags.

Wow......here in Florida a 50# bag of Tiger 90 sulfur is just $9.

There are tons and tons of soybeans upstate around syracuse, maybe I will try to call some farm supply places up there. I wish I could have it shipped in like I do with ammonium sulfate, in a flat rate USPS box.

Agway carries some 90% sulfur powder that is used for dusting plants, I used that to mix in with soil to try to lower ph because it was all I could get, if I remember right, it is $13 for 5# bag. I think powder may react quicker than pellets, maybe it didnt work at all, who knows?

Pellets break down just as fast as the powder, it is simply pelleted to make application easier and less messy. Neither break down terribly fast as it requires bacterial action.

Native soil on my property is pH neutral and semi-clay. I'm not in the part of NJ where blueberries farms are plentiful; in the south of the state, natural pH is around 5 and soil is sandy.