In message
,
Higgs Boson writes
Is it necessary?

I finally -- after waiting literally decades! -- got a pair of
blueberry bushes that had been adapted to need much less winter chill,
so can be grown in So. Calif coastal.

The "O'Neal" bush is loaded with big fat delicious blueberries

Its companion, "Sunshine", is also loaded -- but with tiny, miserable-
looking berries that are drying up by the day.
I am returning it to the nursery.

Questions:

1. Is "cross-fertilization" necesssary? Some of the sites I visited
said yes; others said (AFAIK) that O'Neal was self-pollinating but
would be better with cross.

2. If so, why can't it be between same varieties, rather than across
varieties?

One means used by plants to avoid self-fertilisation is
self-incompatibility alleles, where the population contains lots of
different alleles at the locus, and an individual can't be fertilised by
pollen from a plant (such as itself) with the same allele.

In the case of vegetatively propagated varieties of such plants all
individuals of the variety have the same self-incompatibility allele,
and you need a different variety for fertilisation.


I am dizzy trying to evaluate the many varieties listed on the sites I
visited. My #1,2,3, and so on requirement is FLAVOR. Prefer more
tangy than mild.

Your input appreciated -- keeping in mind this is So. Calif. Coastal.

TIA

HB


--
Stewart Robert Hinsley