Blueberry flowering too early!!

[Matty1985]

Hi

My blueberry bush has started to flower right now, little white flowers!


Sure this is too early? What should i do? Prune them off? Leave them be? I don't know!!! Help!!

[mothhawk]

Leave them be. if you cut them off you'll get no fruit. Open flowers will stand temperatures down to -2C, buds as cold as -5C. When the flower drops off the developing fruit, then it's more susceptible to frost and that's when you need to give it a bit of protection if the forecast is below 0C.

Have a look here - Growth stages table | Blueberries | MSU Extension

[Zelenina]

Do you know what variety it is? It might be one with a short chilling time, which are really bred for areas with milder winters than the standard long-chill varieties. They start flowering when they they've had enough cold weather for their particular variety. Some need 800 hours of chilling and some as little as 150 hours.

If you cut off the flowers you won't get any berries. The main problem is that the flowers are very sensitive to low temperatures at the stage of setting fruit. So if you're in a place that's likely to get temperatures at or below 0 C in the near future you'll need to protect it. Bring it inside if it's in a container. Or maybe wrapping it in fleece would do the trick.

P.s. That's the exact same table I was looking at, Mothawk We've had lots of discussion about blueberries lately. I'm almost getting to be an expert

[Matty1985]

It looks like early bloom from that table. Although the bush has no leaves at the moment, but plenty of these clusters of flowers, some of which are open. I can't remember the type of bush it is, but last year I remember it bearing fruit in late May early June. It is in a container but I have no where inside I can put it, so may have to just put a fleece round it over night. Thanks for the advice, glad I didn't panic and impulse prune the flowers off now and got advice from the grapes!!