How to Trim Blueberries

Once established, blueberries make fruitful and low-maintenance additions to the home garden. You can eat blueberries directly off the bush or preserve them as jams or pie fillings for later enjoyment. Unlike many fruit-producing plants, few diseases afflict blueberries and they require little special maintenance. One important aspect of maintaining your blueberries is pruning. Blueberries produce large numbers of small twigs that bear tiny fruit. Although pruning results in fewer canes, pruned blueberry bushes produce more and larger, higher-quality fruit.

Lopping shears or handsaw
Hand shears

Instructions

- 1
  Remove any diseased, dead or damaged canes by making a clean cut close to the branch from which they arise. Use hand shears to remove wood that is one year old or younger. Use loppers or a handsaw to remove older wood.
- 2
  Identify one-year-old wood by its dull color and the presence of buds. Look for new growth on this wood and prune canes that don't have a lot of new growth.
- 3
  Cut away any canes that will touch the ground when loaded with ripe fruit, as well as any canes that developed late in the season at the base of the plant.
- 4
  Remove two or three canes each year that are seven years old or older. Select canes that have been least productive in recent years. It may help you to mark unproductive canes each year with string or ribbon so that you can identify them for pruning the following spring. Choose unproductive canes that touch other canes, and cut back canes that will help open the center of the bush to light and air-circulation, which prevents the occurrence of disease.
- 5
  Trim back some of the small shoots with a lot of flower buds on canes that tend to produce large amounts of small fruit. This will encourage the development of larger, fuller fruit on that cane.

Blueberry Spacing and Planting

How to Grow Blueberry Bushes in Eastern North Carolina

Growing Blueberries