Effects of rootstock cultivar on plant growth and development， fruit yield and quality of blueberry

To improve the ecological adaptability and fruit yield and quality of northern highbush blueberry （Vacciniu corymbosum） cultivar‘ Spartan’ in subtropic areas，we conducted blueberry grafting improvement and cultivation trials through selecting two rabbiteye blueberry（ V. ashei） cultivars —‘Premier’ and‘ Gardenblue’ and northern highbush blueberry cultivar‘ Croaton’ as rootstocks，and designing two grafting methods—greenwood cleftgrafting and inlaid bud-grafting. Five-year trial results showed that rootstock cultivar had great impacts on growth and development，fruit yield and quality of grafted‘ Spartan’saplings and trees，and the best performance of rootstock was‘ Croaton’ ，which was significantly better than non-grafted‘ Spartan’ as well as the two rabbiteye blueberry cultivars whether in sapling or tree stage. Taking‘ Croaton’ as rootstock of‘ Spartan’ had the following advantages： strong affinity of rootstock and scion，grafting interfaces healed well，plants grew fast，large number of branches， early bearing，high yield，and excellent quality and almost no tiller as well. The performance of two grafting methods had no significant difference，while greenwood cleft-grafting performed better than inlaid bud-grafting relatively. Suitable rootstock cultivar and grafting method significantly improve plant growth and development，fruit yield and quality of‘ Spartan’ blueberry.