Jersey

Jersey is one of the oldest northern highbush cultivars still in commercial production, reported by Michigan State Extension as a 'Rubel' x 'Grover' cross made in 1916 and released in 1928 out of the New Jersey breeding work that Frederick Coville began with Elizabeth White at Whitesbog. MSU credits it with driving the first expansion of Michigan's blueberry industry, where it once occupied more than a quarter of the state's acreage. It has endured on toughness rather than refinement: extremely cold hardy, adaptable across a wide range of soils, and dependable year after year with little fuss. Its acreage is now shrinking because the fruit is too soft for modern fresh-market handling and the bush is very susceptible to blueberry stem gall wasp. Today it functions mainly as a processing, U-pick, and home-garden variety, and its strong fall colour on a tall erect frame also earns it use as a landscape shrub.