If just for personal use and not for profit this might work. How much area are you talking? Would you consider herbicide as a one time way to kill trees? If not the trees will regrow and be a constant problem. But I think they could be controlled if not allowed to grow to any height. Again if you expect to make money planting amongst the tree stumps untreated will likely fail.

The other issue is soil pH. Get a test done. If it's not below 5 some treatment is needed. If above 7, probably unlikely in humid climate, you are out of business.

Two or three yrs of 100% shade would probably kill the trees. But you can't do that while growing blueberries. I had pecan survive 8 yrs in my greenhouse under 95% weed barrier as a ground cover.

Agree with FN. In the long run the stumps will be beneficial for blueberry or any other plant you may choose. The high OM content of the soil will help grow good plants if the pH is less than optimal. I have also seen vaccinium in the wild growing well out of fallen logs,

The question is how to kill them for good. If it is a really small plot with relatively few trees (say less than 1000), I would consider chopping them, then painting Roundup around the cambium with a paint brush. Conversely you could choose to wait until May, spray them, wait a week, then chop them. If you were planning to plant in Fall, this would not delay your project. Spend the summer whacking and re-spraying survivors.

I believe that Japan has volcanic soil, so the soil pH might already be OK for blueberries. This will have to be checked, somehow, perhaps using dye indicator, bromocresol green. Blueberry roots are typically infested with fungi that are specific to these shrubs. The fungi enhance the ability of the shrub to pick up nutrient and grow well. It is called mycorhizzal association. Since fungi live on decaying wood and similar material, the shrubs should thrive in an environment with fallen trees. Whether this plan is practical or not depends mainly on your ability to keep the brush down. If the blueberry shrubs have to compete with nearby trees and bushes for water and sunlight, then the results you seek may not be possible. If the planting is small enough to manage, then success is more likely.

Thanks guys.

I was able to get up there today to try and get a handle on the exact size of the property.The maps and markers are not very clear. I'll try to get in touch with the neighboring farmer, he may also know that pH range of the soil in that area.

It's a bit hard to describe, but it's mainly the north end and west side of very small valley that runs north/south. I think only about 1/2 the property, the north end, gets sun most of the day and thus will be suitable for growing stuff. The west neighboring property has raised elevation and tall trees, so there shadow coming from there from the afternoon.. Total property area is 3819 square meters, so almost an acre if my calculations are correct.

So maybe about half an acre of good sunny usable land.

Edit: I am still a bit unclear about the effect of not pulling up all the stumps etc. Is the idea that any native plants left in the soil, even if you religiously chop them level to the ground, Will continually drain water and nutrients at such a rate that any non-native crop plants don't stand a chance and will be stunted or die?

The idea of covering the land in pesticides or poisons to kill everything isn't very appealing, especially since we plan to eat crops off it.

Shoots from the trees will be trying to grow up from every stump. If that's close to the berry plants they'll be hard to cut. And they will compete for water and nutrients unless continually cut short. A lot depends on the tree species. Some will even send up shoots from the roots, some not.

I'd try digging out all stumps if possible from a small area. Start planting there and expand

as you gain experience.

Okay thanks.but from what little I've done so far, manually removing the roots doesn't look realistic. As I mentioned, the large trees were destroyed. But the seven year growth smaller trees are quite a few. These were impossible with the shovel and pick I had, to dig up by hand. I may be dreaming an impossible dream then, unless I spend The three dollars or whatever it is for this area.

I guess I got hopeful when I saw that the growth was Spotty due to large piles of rotting logs. These areas have no trees, and top layer is like papier-mâché that my shovel cut right through to reveal rich Humus underneath. There's a few Pinetree's as well I could cut down and sprinkle the needles over the proposed blueberry area.

We're just finishing freezing temps now, so I thought there may be time to plant a test strip of different blueberry varieties and see how they do, rather than waiting another year.

Sure plant a test strip and see how it goes. After a year you'll know how much issue the smaller trees are going to be. Then use your imagination to devise ways around the issue. Just keep it small until you see how it's going. Maybe they can be shaded out with heavy mulch. The area does sound ideal for blueberries if pH is low.

Pulling out the stumps is backbreaking work, and will hurt the blueberry plants. They like the stumps in the ground. I think one acre can be cleared with a single one pint can of Round up. I have my own can, bought in 1997, and I still have 1/3 of it, because I have always applied it with a paint brush. If you paint all stumps, only on the cambium, 90% will die. Those that send up shoots, you paint the shoots, the tree dies.

In the second year you will have very little if any shoots. Then your plot has three years to detox itself, and your fertilizer (the stumps) is deep into the soil. Glyphosate is aggressively degraded in rich humus, due to the presence of many strains of bacteria and fungi. It's not like glyphosate in a barren corn field. It will take a few weeks for it to disappear in a humid, warm, high OM environment.

In a humid climate, there are also steps you can take to speed the decomposition of the stumps. Several holes drilled into the stump and filled with a high N fertilizer (IIRC Ammonium Sulphate was used) is supposed to greatly speed up the decay of the stump. If you can handle the resprouting problem, a quick decay might be much simplier than pulling the stumps.

When I moved into my house I had a mulberry tree cut flush to the ground. I covered it with a foot of mulch. That was four years ago, it has never sent up shoots. The peach tree I planted next to it is the most vigorous tree in my yard.

Thanks folks.

I got up there today and got a better look. I was happy to see the property layout is better than I thought. Maybe a third of an acre could be used.

As for the trees, I got a bit more info. cedars had been planted there with the intent of harvest along time ago. They were maybe up to about a foot in circumference when the typhoon destroyed all of them 10 years ago. Some of them were roughly cut and piled up. Then may be about eight years ago A kind of japanese elm (Zelkova serrata) was planted at regular spacing over the whole property. They are up to about 4" at the trunk now. There's a hodgepodge of other stuff in there as the property was let go, but nothing much bigger than that from what I could see. Do small elm like this recover from being chopped at the base?

It'll be rough work, but I think I can clear it all with our steal saw bladed weed eater.

I've never used herbicides before. Round up isn't toxic to people or destroy the ground? I could try to find a local equivalent with the active ingredient.

I have cut a number of mature (20" diameter) american elms for firewood, and they do put up shoots. Not sure if your trees are really the same. For the clearing, please try to find a nice, if expensive, Stihl chainsaw, it is too hard to do manually, and if you do not need firewood, I would leave the trees where they fall. That is all the non-nitrogen fertilizer you will need.

I doubt that you have a need to accelerate decay by injection of various ammonia in the stumps. I used to do that, but roots are very good at growing into dead wood without any help. Let nature work for you in this case.

In regard to Round up, you use a paintbrush 1cm across or less, the cambium is 1-3 mm, cover the cambium and nothing else. Very little is needed, possibly a cup for a few 100 trees. Ideally, spend the next month cutting the trees, April will be a perfect time for painting them (RU is most lethal during the vigorous spring growth). Do it when the weather will be dry for several days.

How about I give a test strip a try this year with no poisons, and see how it goes? If it's obviously impossible, then look at poisons/ machinery etc. I assume roundup can be added later?

We were all off yesterday so took the opportunity to visit a garden center and bought about 10 small blueberry plants, all different varieties to aid pollination. Apparently southern highbush, midbush, and rabbit eye all work here.

Forgot to add I'll try adding aged chicken manure to the holes when I plant. They sell it very cheap here, at it looks like dry brown powder. I can sprinkle some on during the growing season too.

Better be careful about adding the aged chicken manure to the holes where the blueberry will go! Young blueberry plants are very sensitive to N and easy to kill. Petemoss, compost or bark mulch would be a lot better choice. Garden Centers don't always sell the proper types of Blueberry for a given area. SHB are a lot more demanding as far as PH and organic matter compared to Rabbiteye which makes them harder to grow. Not sure what a midbush is

Thanks Rick. I may have mistranslated a sign as "midbush", and there's no such thing. I've got about 20 small plants to try out, mix of Rabbiteye and Southern Highbush, lots of interesting sounding varieties, "Oneil", "Blueshower", "Georgia gem", etc. Thanks for the tip about no chicken. I'll try just raw into the ground then with the well decomposed logs, and cut down some pine trees to cover the ground best I can. This'll be a really wild plantation test.

Last month we planted a few blueberry bushes at another site (smaller proper garden area) and rotortilled in a bale of peat moss. They seem to be doing well so far. The peatmoss is $40 a bail, so I don't want to buy anymore if there's another way to get the soil ph down. I guess a ph meter would help to know how far off we are. Are these type ok or junk? Seemed to get good reviews on Amazon, but that may not say much.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/aw/d/B000E5ZLSC?vs=1

Thanks Rick

I've been reading up as much as I can this week. Iiuc, Rabbiteye are tougher, but SH tend to have better fresh eating berries. I've been keeping an eye out for premier, but haven't seen it yet.

We've been visiting local nurseries, and today saw 2 unusual bushes- very large 6 foot well pruned thick hardy Tifblue rabbiteyes for only 20$ each. I bought one on the spot, and will go back to get the other. Usually the biggest you can get is a little 2 foot young plant for that price. I bought another 6 cubic bale of peatmoss for 30$. I am torn between planting all my remaining blueberry bushes in the recently cleared mountain, or puting these 2 gorgeous bushes in a prime spot in our 'safe' - but limited room- garden. The 'safe' garden is very well cared for good soil with an irrigation system in place near other gardeners, so easy to care for and keep an eye on them and avoid birds, boar, deer, etc.

the mountain 'garden' is just cleared of trees, no idea how itll go, and no easy access to water. I planted a mix of different fruit trees and vines up there a couple of weeks ago as a trail. One of the grape vines disappeared, tags and all. Not sure if there's a theif or animal eating it. Not sure what would eat a woody 1" thick stick though and take the tags and not touch anything else.

Anyway, I should get all these in the ground tomorrow if I can as the weathers going to get warm from now.

Why grow SHB if they are so picky and slow growing? Rabbiteye sound much more durable and productive. Iiuc, we now have early (festival, blueshower etc) and late (tifblue powderblue etc) fruiting varieties, so why bother with picky SHB at all?

Just an update:

I planted everything and decided to cram most of the stock into the safe garden this year and see how they do. I planted a good range of test crops at the mountain, so ill see how they do and try to let you know next year what happened. Ones that do well I'll transplant the rest up there next year.

I've talked to a few more people and the were very optimistic of growing blueberries, some citrus, and a few other fruits almost hands off up there so that's encourageing.

This may be a case of the Internet making things more complicated than reality.

Thanks again for all the help.

Whether SHB are more difficult than rabbiteye depends on a number of factors some already discussed but also on climate. People who have the right conditions favor SHB because the fruit is generally better eating quality. If you can find Sweetcrisp and Springhigh, not likely in Japan, you will see what I mean.

Ok thanks I'll keep an eye out for them.

I've got a translator who will call a successful nearby blueberry u-pick place for me. I was going to give a list of questions to her to ask. Anything you can think would be good to ask?

Off the top of my head, my main concerns are: wether I can leave the old stumps of trees and bushes that can't be removed my hand; if a water reservoir or irrigation system is necessary; soil amendments what and when.

Anything else good to ask?

Plant spacing, fertilization, pest issues, best selling varieties and how much to plant of each variety. Pruning you can learn as you go along. It would be very good to visit in person. Seeing is a big part of learning.

thanks, good questions.

I actualy visited this place last year by chance with the family and we all enjoyed the upick. This was before we were planning on planting a lot of blueberries. But we did get the chance to ask a few questions about care to A lady working the front cash, would like to call again and see if there's an "expert". I remember her saying they had no pests, did no watering or Irrigation, and they only planted Highbush (not sure if it's southern or northern, as apparently both can grow here). We were all happy with the quality of the blueberries.

Today we visited a smaller closer operation connected with a local farm themepark. apparently new management took over a few years ago and it went into serious decline. It looks it. apparently they do nothing, not even any pruning. So while they were useless, it was good to see the plants were able to survive in local natural conditions. I don't know what the fruit qualities like there though.

On my land, I'm thinking of setting up at least some kind of rainwater collection tub for now. I bought a chainsaw a few days ago, so I'm gonna try to get up tomorrow to use in a bit there.

I'll try to link some photos here.

A couple of aerial shots I took, fisheye distortion. The section I'm looking to plant is basically everything left of the road in the top shot. The property maps are atrocious, but from all the info so far, the entire property is roughly the California shaped piece on the left of the bottom photo. For reference, the big tree in the lower right of the top photo is the same tree in the upper center of the bottom photo. That tree marks a property line (and the top right tip of 'California'). Its almost 1 acre total. You can see the section I've cleared so far from the top left. The idea is to go all the way to the Big Tree, and extend down 'state' as required. The 'Pacific Ocean' to the left is raised a bit with tall trees, dropping off sharply on our property, so lots of shape. The top section I'm clearing though seems to get direct sun almost all day. 'California' runs from north at the top, similar to the real California. Behind the Big Tree you can see the neighbors successful kiwi trellises. All our property has a grade to it. The photos were taken around 1:30, so you can see some shadows already in the steep places. I was thinking a rain reservoir in the area I already cut with gravity feed hose as a backup. Theresa a small lake in behind, but its quite a drop down there, and on someone else's property.

I was wondering if anyone could make recommendations for soil amendments at this point? I've added peatmoss to all the initial planting holes. No other amendments. All the plants appear to be doing well so far.

What's next? For example, I saw at the home center today they had a huge bag of ammonium sulfate for $10. Should I add some of that?

This article reccommends perhaps just that. Maybe 1 oz in April,May,June .

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/12202/ec1304.pdf?sequence=3

Here in South Carolina,USA, the pro's say do not put ammonium sulfate until one month after planting. I just planted 75 bare root plant, with compost, watered them in & mulched with straw. I am organic, so I will use blood & bone mill instead of A. Sulfate.

The biggest problem is to not put to much AS or to close to the plant & water the bed good first.This should work fine, mulch straw,hay or grass will keep the water in * the weeds down so the plant can grow.

I'm a new gardener so no stock of compost hay etc.. Could I lay down cardboard instead to suppress weeds and keep water in?

Also, the AS appears to be granulated. Can I just sprinkle an ounce around the plant during heavy rain?

Thanks

Niceguy, wow, this looks like an awesome project! Sulfur, add sulfur!! Ammonium sulfate is great stuff, it acidifies the soil very quickly, but I do agree it can burn new plants, it should be used in very limited quantities. Only use when plants are actively growing. I use 1 tsp per gallon of water as the maximum rate I usually only use 1 tsp per 2.5 gallons once a month. and use acidic organic fertilizer like Holly-Tone. Pine bark fines is excellent as an amendment. Chelated Iron is also good as an amendment or any iron amendment. Cottonseed meal as fertilizer if you can get it? You must not use Nitrate forms of nitrogen, it can hurt the plants. Blueberries have a limited ability to uptake nitrates, too much can harm them. Ask the farmers all you said and what is the pH of the soil? And how do they lower it? And what do they use to fertilize crop?

joij,

I would use cottonseed meal, not bone meal. It sounds like you have no plans to lower pH. pH is critical for blueberry growth. Nothing you mentioned leads me to think you can succeed.
Compost will drive the pH up, if the soil is not naturally acidic, you're going to be in trouble.\

Although reading some other posts you have had some success, not sure why? Maybe Rabbiteye are more forgiving with the pH? I grow highbush and they are not forgiving at all. So I guess you know what you're doing, good luck with it!

I have 20 - 10 year old rabbiteye(the easiest Blueberry to grow), I got 10 gallons off them with only watering them once every seven day if it did not rain.

I do not need cottonseed mill, blood mill will work & keep most wild life, ie deer away from new growth. The bone mill is little sprinkle for bloom & root growth.

As for low pH, houzz is not as good as old gardenweb or you would have seen that I am in mid S.C. in the heading & know we do not low pH we raise it so non acid loving plant can grow.

My compost is made from waste coffee by products & has a lower pH then animal or hay compost.

Thank for the heads up, but in this case bone mill will not hurt my pH.

I have low bush wild blueberry plants growing wild in my 10 acres of timber & they bear every year without any help from me.

Well the soil must be acidic else they would not grow. What is the pH of your soil?
MI produces the most blueberries of any state, but that is the west side where we have sandy low pH soils. I live on the east side with an alkaline clay loam. So I use raised beds to control pH. All attempts to grow in native soil and keep pH low failed. I have had great success with the raised beds. I like to grow cultivars that rate high in taste. I wish i could grow a few of the early SHB like Springhigh as it is one of the best blueberries out there. I do grow a couple SHB that rate high in taste as they are late bloomers and can work here, but most are NHB types. I never tried Rabbiteye, but have a few cultivars I would consider. I'm out of room though. I also grow many other fruits, so room is limited to 7 plants.
Wild blueberries, low bush, huckleberry grow in our state, but none are in my area due to the soil. I forage for blackberries, raspberries, and mulberries instead. Although I do grow domesticated cultivars too. For fun i breed blackberries, just starting, luckily some breeders have helped train me on proven methods. I just asked a couple of breeders for help and they were more than willing to help, even sending seeds and such. Very cool.
Niceguy another question to the growers is what cultivars are they growing? That will give you an idea of what to plant. NHB, SHB, or rabbiteye.

Last check about 5.3 pH.

The 75 bare root I just planted have not been checked yet.

I got my bare roots plants from a pick your own farm, who got his from Finches Nursery.

I need to get them in the ground & growing, later I can lower the pH.

I have a lot of land, wish I could send you 10000. sq.ft.

My wild LB BB have blue green leaves, most are 12" high, a few 36" high.

5.3 is good! Cool! I wish you could too! I wish I could send some of our water to CA, man are they hurting! Here, we have way too much.
I have one cultivar, Cara's Choice, it is a smaller plant, must have some of those wild genes, it's blue-green too. Pretty! Also a new cultivar they are selling at all the box stores has the blue-green foliage. My NHB plants turn flaming red in the winter

Blueberries · More Info

Just an update that I had a couple of people from the local agriculture office come up to the property to take a look. They said it's not really worth trying to make a commercial as I wouldn't get my money back out of it. That's fine as I wasn't planning on doing that anyway. Long story short they basically said everything I'm doing is basically the right way to go and echoed some comments here. They did agree to do free soil tests for me so I've taken about eight samples from this location and another location. Unfortunately a thief twice has entered and taken two of my testing plants. Working on solutions for that now.

Well the lady from the office called with the soil sample results, left a message with my wife today. Very interesting.

I took 3 natural unaltered samples from the area I'm developing for blueberries, as well as 2 more much farther down the slope with different trees and soil. The three were pH: 4.62; 4.58; 4.77. The other two are: 4.76; 4.88. That sounds pretty damned perfect.

They said the E.C. (I assume this is Electical Continuity) was 0.01. This is a new concept for me. But she said it means the citrus we grow there will need fertilizer. How about the blueberries? I imagine I'll need to be careful with the ammonia sulfate as it will lower the pH, and I may be in the unusual position of the pH being too acidic for blueberries. What's good cheap fertilizer I can buy for this location for blueberries?

As a side, I slipped in 3 more samples from different locations: The area most of my blueberry plants are being temporarily held right now (5.42) ; nice looking large vegetable garden plot I made (6.19 with EC of 0.42); and my backyard (7.24).

So everything looks to be right on track. I thought my backyard was interesting, as this is an old suburban area and there's a lot of concrete and gravel around and it must've leached into the soil. That's my guess anyway.