of Briggs Nursery The pink blueberry, Vaccinium Pink Lemonade, is a complex cross of highbush blueberries. ItÕs proving to be a popular garden plant and production is ramping up for commercial plantings.

Breeder touts colorful advantage of novelty fruit

By STEVE BROWN

Capital Press

Pink blueberries bring another pretty face to the garden, and they can also attract attention in the farmers’ market.

The uniquely colored cultivar — Vaccinium “Pink Lemonade” — was developed by a USDA breeding program in New Jersey, said Chad Finn, research geneticist and small fruit breeder at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service office in Corvallis, Ore.

“This has a great potential market for homeowners, similar to the yellow raspberries,” he said. “It’s a novelty — a strong demand for a small amount.”

He added that berry growers could benefit by having the eye-catching color at their farmers’ market booth. “People are going to come see it.”

“Pink Lemonade” should work well in all Northwest blueberry-growing areas, he said.

Briggs Nursery in Elma, Wash., is a wholesale operation that introduced the pink blueberry as one of its featured plants.

“It was introduced in 2009, and at this point we’re sold out through spring 2011,” said Jeff Mason, a salesman at Briggs, which sells to retailers and landscapers.

“It’s a complex cross of Rabbiteye and Southern highbush with other Highbush varieties. It’s an excellent garden plant, mid-late to late-season ripening, and it’s sweeter than standard blueberries,” he said.

Part of its appeal to landscapers is its ornamental colors — fruit, foliage and branches — year-round, he said. It’s self-fertile, so a single plant is sufficient to grow berries.

The plant is featured on its own website — www.pinklemonade-blueberry.com — and gardeners are talking up the plant on its Facebook page, under “Vaccinium ‘Pink Lemonade’ Blueberry Plant.” Fans on the site call it “eye-catching” and “yummy.”

The news hasn’t reached the upper levels of the blueberry industry, though. Neither Alan Schreiber, executive director of the Washington Blueberry Commission, nor Bryan Ostlund, executive director of the Oregon Blueberry Commission, had heard about a pink blueberry.

“That’s new to me,” Ostlund said.

Mason, on the other hand, said he expects commercial production to come up “relatively soon” and has been talking to people about putting them into fields. “Because it’s a Southern highbush, it tolerates a lot of heat and doesn’t require a lot of chilling.”

Finn said he doesn’t think “Pink Lemonade” is any sweeter than other blueberries, “but it definitely has good flavor.”

Another blueberry variety, “Pink Champagne,” with a lighter pink hue, is also on the market, primarily as a garden or landscape plant.

Online

www.briggsnursery.com