ane BULLETIN 974, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
PROPAGATION. 
While grafting or budding is almost indispensable in experimental 
work with blueberries, bushes propagated by these methods are not 
suitable for permanent commercial plantations, because such bushes 
are continually sending up new and undesirable shoots from the 
stock. Budding, however, is the best known means of producing a 
large quantity of cutting wood from a valuable selected blueberry 
hybrid. It is useful also in testing the quality of a new variety, for 
a budded blueberry when properly handled comes into bearing two 
years from the time of budding and doubtless will continue to yield 
for several years, until the budded stem becomes old and decrepit. 
BUDDING. 
The best season for budding the blueberry is from the middle of 
July to the middle of August. The ordinary method of shield 
budding,® with a T-shaped cut and dry and unwaxed raffia wrapping, 
has proved the most successful of all the methods tried. (PI. IT.) 
In selecting budwood, attention should be paid to the following 
points: A bud forms at the base of each jeaf; at first the scales cov- 
ering the bud are green; when they are a little older they become 
straw colored, and later brown. When the buds have reached this 
brown stage they are of the proper age for use. AI] three stages 
may occur at the same time on a single branch, and in such a case 
the upper part of the branch should be discarded. A bud is more 
easily handled if the tiny leafstalk is left attached to it. Provision 
for this is easily made by cutting off the blades, but not the stalks, 
of the leaves when the branches that are to be used for budwood 
are removed from the parent bush. Care should be taken to discard 
the large fat flowering buds that occur toward the ends of the 
branches. In most blueberry plants, however, these flowering buds 
do not develop until after the budding season. 
When blueberry buds are to be inserted the same day on which the 
budwood is cut, the sticks require no other treatment than to be kept 
in the shade in the folds of a moist clean towel. The budwood is 
easily ruined, however, by continued subjection to the high tem- 
peratures Suet at the midsummer budding season. Any bud- 
wood that has been cut should therefore be kept on ice at night or 
at any other time when it is not in actual use. 
In carrying blueberry budwood long distances, excellent results 
have been secured by the use of a thermos bottle. The bottle, opened, 
and the budwood, in clean moist wrappings and with additional 
moist packing material, should be kept on ice for several hours 
5This and other methods of budding are described in Farmers’ Bulletin 157, “ The 
Propagation of Plants,’ by L. C. Corbett. 
