blueberry seed germination

Jun 11, 2008 5 Replies
S

There are a few wild blueberry plants growing in a section of my lawn. I am wondering how they got there.



I have lived here for 20 years and would have noticed them if they were here all along. As I understand it, blueberries spread mainly by rhizomes. This area is isolated by a paved driveway and a concrete walk. There are a lot of wild blueberries in my region, but none around my property.



Since the berries are at the base of a tree, a friend suggested that perhaps a bird ate some berries and later perched on this tree and "did his business", leaving some berry seeds on the ground by the tree..



Is it possible that blueberry seeds (or any seeds for that matter) could pass through a digestive system and still germinate?


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J

That's how most fruits work--something eats them and then deposits the seeds in the midst of a nice pile of fertilizer.

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S

Thanks for the speedy reply.

I am surprised that seeds survive the digestive process!

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P

Most definitely. Seeds are tough. And when the seed passes through it gets the added benefit of a small deposit of natural fertilizer. The wild blueberry plants in east Tennessee are typically much smaller than plants you might purchase at a nursery.

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K

They evolved to do so! The reason berries exist at all for the most part is to entice birds or other animals to eat the seeds inside them and poop them out somewhere else where they will sprout. The plants aren't producing the berries just out of the goodness of their hearts. :-)

Utopia in Decay

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Cherkauer

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