Blueberries - Everything in One Place (PDF e-book) Czech

E-book: Blueberries – Everything in One Place

The blueberry does not want good garden soil; it wants acidic soil. It does not want nitrate; it wants ammonium. And behind the one name hide five different plants that differ in almost everything — from their winter chilling requirement to the flavour of the fruit. This book gives answers grounded in science.

The blueberry is a newcomer to our gardens. The cultivated blueberry is a child of the twentieth century, and as late as 1900 horticultural circles held that it could not be domesticated. The advice that circulates about it is therefore often borrowed from other fruit — and for the blueberry it does not hold. This book was written the other way round: from dozens of scientific studies. The text carries 695 numbered references, and at the end of each of the eight parts you will find a list of the works used, 158 sources in all. Where measurements disagree, the book says so — and explains why they disagree.

What is this book about?

You will learn where the blueberry came from and why it is the most genetically complicated fruit in the orchard. Why it needs acidic soil and ammonium nitrogen, and what happens when it gets neither. What goes on inside the bush from winter dormancy to harvest, what spring frost, diseases and pests do to it — and which of the five types withstands what. Why one berry is crisp and another turns soft after a few days in the fridge, what calcium has to do with it, and why liming the soil will not help. And finally: how to pick, store and process blueberries so that they keep both their flavour and their colour.

What you will find in the book (Contents)

• I. A Century of the Blue Berry: How a bush that supposedly could not be tamed became, in a single century, a crop of five continents. Five types of blueberry, five strategies.
• II. What the Blueberry Carries in Its Genes: Chromosome arithmetic, genes from the south and from the north, what DNA sequencing revealed and what breeders are aiming at today.
• III. Acidic Soil, Water and Roots: A subject that does not exist for most fruit and that, in the blueberry, decides everything else — pH, substrate, mycorrhiza, nutrition, irrigation and mulch.
• IV. The Year in the Planting: The biological clock, spring frosts, flower and pollination, the seed as the engine of the fruit, bush shape and pruning, summer heat.
• V. What Threatens the Planting: Diseases of wood, roots and fruit, pests and weeds — and a survey of what each type of blueberry can withstand.
• VI. Calcium and Fruit Firmness: An element the soil has plenty of but the fruit does not. Why liming will not help, foliar feeding and the “golden window”, which calcium to choose and what calcium actually does inside the fruit.
• VII. Fruit, Harvest and the Journey to the Shelf: Flavour, aroma and sugar content, the bloom, picking, the cold chain, anthocyanins and heat, drying and freezing, the world map of production.
• VIII. Beyond the Horizon: Vaccinium stamineum — a species still waiting for its chance — and the blueberry grown for beauty.
• IX. Cultivar catalogue: 54 cultivars in seven groups.

A catalogue of 54 cultivars

• Scope of the catalogue: Northern Highbush, Southern Highbush, Rabbiteye, Half-high and Lowbush, plus Finnish cultivars for short summers and hard winters, and ornamental blueberries for containers and balconies.
• Detailed profiles: For every cultivar you will find its origin and breeder, a description of bush and fruit, cold hardiness and chilling requirement, disease resistance, pollination requirements, picking time, yield, and advantages as well as disadvantages. Every cultivar has a photograph.
• How to read the data: The catalogue has its own introduction, which explains that the terms “early — mid-season — late” always apply within a single type only: a late Southern Highbush ripens earlier than an early Rabbiteye.
• Straight from the book to our range: 47 cultivars carry a link to the cultivar’s page in our online shop.

Technical details

• Author: Dr. et Dr. Matej Prokop, PhD.
• Reviewer (original Slovak edition): prof. PaedDr. Pavol Prokop, DrSc.
• Extent: 491 pages, 39 chapters, 123 photographs
• Format: PDF, optimised for reading on screen and for printing (file size 16 MB). The file is not password-protected (no DRM); you can read it on any device, print it and make notes in it. Every copy carries the buyer’s identification.
• Language: English (also available in Slovak, Czech and German)
• Edition and ISBN: First edition, 2026 | ISBN: 978-80-975423-7-5
• Publisher: TUTIFRUTI (Prokop T&B s.r.o.)
  (You will receive the link to download the PDF file immediately after your order has been paid.)