Soil Preparation For Blueberry Farms – Bluegrass Blueberries

It is very typical when planting blueberries that you will need to apply organic material to your field prior to planting. It is important to have your field ready before you spend the money and time investment of planting a Blueberry Farm. We recommend and have had success using a mixture of Peat Moss mixed with Pine Soil Conditioner (Pine Fines) in soil amendment applications for farm installation of blueberry plants. If you can also add some aged compost that can also be a great addition. It is important that the manure/compost is aged before preparing your blueberry field.

We do sell both Peat moss and Pine Fines at our nursery, however if you are going to be buying in bulk please call ahead for availability.

The following ratios for Peat Moss to Pine Fines (Pine-based soil conditioner) are based on a 1 (One) acre blueberry installation project at 1,049 plants per acre. This volume is based on plants every 4′ apart in a row, with rows being 10′ apart.

NON-BULK Ratios: 1 (3.8 cu’) bags Peat Moss/4 (1.5 cu’) bags Pine Soil Conditioner*

BULK Ratios: *Pine Soil Conditioner, or finely ground pine mulch, can often be purchased in bulk unlike Peat Moss. If you are able to purchase Pine Soil Conditioner in bulk, the conversion would be: 109 (3.8 cu’) bales Peat Moss/30 cu yd. of Pine Soil Conditioner.

Mixing Peat Moss and Pine Fines at our Farm

Mixing Peat Moss and Pine Fines

We highly recommend mixing peat moss and pine fines into the ground before planting. There has been a huge difference in the plants from the farmers who mix in a soil amendment beforehand, and those who don’t.

Sometimes it is hard to know how much peat moss, pine fines, and or compost that someone should amend into their blueberry farm prior to planting. It can often depend on the pH of your soil and the organic material. We generally recommend 1 bale of peat moss and 4 bags of pine fines for every 10 blueberry bushes. So for a one acre project this would be 109 bales of peat moss and 436 bags of pine fines, or if you buy your pine fines in bulk it would be about 30 yards.

If you were to buy the peat moss from us at our wholesale price it would be $1,689.50. If you bought the pine fine bags it would cost about $1,962.00. Or if you bought pine fines in bulk it would be about $1,200. So for one acre of blueberry planting it generally costs about $2,800-3,200. In the long run it is definitely worth it to spend the money in the soil amendment. It is very important to consider this cost because once you plant your blueberry farm you can no longer add your soil amendment unless you dig your blueberry plants back up.

An alternative or an additional thing to consider is taking soil samples to see what minerals your land may need for the productivity of your Blueberry Farm. If your farm’s organic material is already high, and your pH is not too high, you may be able to just add aged compost and different recommended minerals that would allow your blueberries to thrive.

If you do not add Peat and Pine to your rows, it is certainly recommend that you take soil samples to see what you what you need. The company we like to use is Fertrell. They are an Organic Fertilizer Company that have agronomists that will help you know what you need to add to your soil. They use Waypoint Analytical to analyze the soil samples.