Photo: Eric Hunt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Rabbiteye — named for the pinkish, rabbit-eye-like blush on unripe fruit; sweet and slightly thicker-skinned than highbush, and more heat- and drought-tolerant, making it the dominant commercial blueberry of the Deep South.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- July–Sept
- Mature size
- Bush 2–3 m
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 4.5–6.0 (tolerates slightly higher than highbush)
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Southeastern US coastal plain — southern Georgia, Alabama, the Florida panhandle and neighboring Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Texas, in pocosins, swamps, sandhills and pine barrens.
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- Light crop from yr 3; full production by yr 5+
- Growth speed
- Vigorous — multiple growth flushes a year, each adding roughly 15–25 cm with adequate moisture and nutrition.
- Spacing
- 183 cm (72 in) apart — about 3.3 m² (36 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Elliptical to ovate leaves 2.5–7.5 cm long, glossy with finely serrated margins; deciduous, reddish-green in spring through blue-green in summer to red/orange/purple in autumn.
- Root system
- Shallow and fibrous, lacking root hairs and relying on ericoid mycorrhizal fungi; needs acidic soil.
- Fruit description
- Round berries, small to very large depending on cultivar, ripening from green through pink to blue-purple.
- Propagation
- Softwood cuttings (spring, 4–6in, treated with rooting hormone) are the standard commercial method; reported to root more readily from softwood cuttings than other blueberry types.
- Pollination
- ⚠ Largely SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — needs a 2nd cultivar
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Standard acid-loving-shrub feeding — an azalea-type fertilizer (e.g. 10-5-4 or 11-7-7) starting after the first full leaf flush and repeated at roughly 6-week intervals, with ammonium sulfate for sidedressing on established plantings.
Growing tips. Needs markedly less winter chilling than northern highbush: rabbiteye cultivars require roughly 400–700 chill hours (e.g. "Climax" ~450, "Tifblue" ~650) versus northern highbush's 600–1,000+ hours and southern highbush's 150–600 — placing it in the middle of the blueberry chill-hour spectrum, and explaining why it's the dominant commercial blueberry across the Deep South. All cultivars are susceptible to mummy berry disease, managed mainly by removing mummified fruit debris. Remove flower buds for the first 1–2 years to build the plant; mature bushes can yield 12–25 lb.
Grow journal
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