Extremely warm weather during the month of March, and in early the month of April in Poland has dramatically accelerated the growth of species. Jagodnik.pl states that some blueberry species began blooming up to four weeks earlier than normal. This has never been seen in the past blueberry production in Poland. Could this be a sign of an unusually spring-like year to Polish blueberries?

“This is the only instance in my nearly 25 years of experience cultivating blueberries! I haven’t seen such a rapid flowering in the first varieties of blueberries,” says Miroslaw Garlinska who is a blueberry farmer who hails from Dolecko (Mazovia). In order to prove his point his claim, he refers to historical records regarding the time of beginning the flowering season of various blueberry varieties according to his own records.

One of the first blueberry cultivars can be found in “Patriot”. Normally, it generally blooms the middle of May. However, this year – it began to bloom as early on the 7th of April. Earlyblue and Duke varieties of blueberries generally blossom immediately following Patriot. Based on historical information gathered from the Mr. Miroslav, in normal instances, the blooms occurred between May 5 and May. In this year’s edition, the earlyblue started flowering on the 8th of April. The Duke isn’t blooming at this point, but it will start to blossom in just a couple of days.

This is an unnatural phenomenon resulted from the climate during the months of March and April. This does not favor either the plant or producers. The more advanced the plant’s development stage, the more vulnerable it is to temperatures that are low. There are predictions of frosts that might occur towards the end of April in this year.

“Blooming blueberries that early do not mean that harvest is going to begin earlier. There have been years of late flowering, yet harvesting began at the normal timing. So, I wouldn’t believe that we’ll have an unusually early harvest of blueberries on the plantations,” says Miroslav Garlinsky.

Source: east-fruit.com