If the plants are patented your not suppost to propigate the plants untill the patent expires. I belive its 10 years on patents but I may be wrong. If you do propigate them I wouldnt tell anyone about it!

I haven't tried Ka-bluey,but Elizabeth is very good. Brady

I have several KaBlueys. They don't get many, if any, berries on them. I suspect they are not fully hardy in zone 4a. I have about 70 bushes of various varieties, and the rest bear fine after a couple years. Northwoodswis

Northwoodswis, do you have a favorite variety of blueberry?

I've given up on both Ka-Bluey and Elizabeth. I've tried to establish them over the last six years and have had no success; they die out in the heat of summer here. The berries I got from them were sparse and nothing exceptional anyway. I must say though that Gurney's is great about honoring their lifetime guarantee and have no fault w/the company, only the variety.

As far as flavor goes, I like St. Cloud the best. For reliability Northland is very good. Chandler gets huge berries over a long season, but only if we have a mild winter, so maybe not fully hardy here. Overall, there isn't a real difference in flavor in most of the varieties I have tried. Northwoodswis

Edymnion,
I'm not so sure about that.I was just reading some past threads and some have different views on plant patents.
Here is one in the link.There are a lot of opinions in the thread and some links to patent law.About halfway into the thread,a doctor of Agronomy chimes in and wrote that even some plant seeds are under patent.
It's an interesting thread just to read. Brady

Here is a link that might be useful: Patented Plants

A patented plant is not suppost to be propagated. The reason for the patent is to protect the grower who put in all the work and breeding to produce it. You can how ever use the seeds to reproduce a patented plant as it will not be exactly like the parent plant. Tissue cultured plants are cheap if bought small, like $6 or so. Plus they produce a superior plant after the first year compared to rooted cuttings. What's the point for a patent if someone could buy one plant and turn it into 100s of plants? Not saying you can't propagate them, just don't make it public knowledge and dang sure don't sell them! The inventor deserves his cut of the money. I've done my home work on this topic and every thing that has to do with blueberries. I had the same idea! Florida Hill Nursry doesnt have the best reputation but they offer Northern and Southern High Bush tissue culture plugs for cheap. Plus it's a legal plant that's certified disease free. That's a pretty sweet deal! You could always contact the University of Florida and ask them about patent regulations on blueberries as they hold many of them. They won't steer you wrong. I was wrong in my first post, patents are 20 years.

Propagating before the patent is released is bad karma indeed
anyway... I sampled a grower friend's Kabluey & much to my dismay was not at all impressed
taste is subjective but I detected none of the special complex stuff
I was so ready to buy it before that!
Gurneys has an awesome way of making all they sell sound soooo good
which has not been my experience
Maybe they have different soil rain & sunshine.

I can't believe how early they ripened, but i just picked some Ka-bluey blueberries and they were sweet and delicious. I had to net the plant to keep the birds away. Nice big blue blueberries about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter. I have other types of blueberries and have picked many other at orchards and have to say the Ka-bluey were among the best for fresh eating. The bush is about 4 years old and 3 feet in diameter.

The best thing about the kabluey is the rabbits dont touch it. They ate all five of my other plant but have left the kabluey alone. Other than birds I have no pest problems with it. This is the first year it has fruited and they are not ripe yet so I cant say how they taste yet mabye next week.

Qualifier: My experience with growing blueberries is limited to Ka Bluey.
So, with that said, 3 yrs ago I purchased 2 3yr old Ka Blueys from Garden Alive. Put them in the ground with not much success - deer grazing and I think not enough sunlight. 2 yrs ago I transferred them to very large pots (a little smaller than whiskey barrels), applied sulfur pellets to ensure acidity and tested acidity level to be about 5 pH as well as recommended soil mixtures, and full sun. They all grew vigorously, in spite of some gall, but no fruits, until this year. This year probably produced a couple of pints. Tasted them as soon as they looked purple. Good taste - peachy, but a little tart. HOWEVER, when I let them stay on the plant for a week or so more, they were FABULOUS tasting. So, based on my very limited experience, I plan on letting them ripen a bit longer before picking. Hoping also for a bumper crop in 2014 as they will be about 7 yrs old.

I agree,leaving the fruit on the plant to ripen fully,usually makes a big difference in taste. Brady

I got the large sized one from Gurney's last spring and potted it. Grew very well last year and this year too. Had a few berries this year and have high hopes for next year. The berries tasted very good. The foliage is extremely thick/dense and grows from multiple shoots coming out of the ground. Have 6 different varieties potted and the Ka-bluey is the only one that has a case of red ringspot virus. Doesn't seem to be affecting the plant too much except it looks like hell.

This post was edited by edweather on Thu, Aug 15, 13 at 0:16

I have to grow NHB types and have Toro, Liberty and Chandler. I'm pretty happy with the plants. I want to add more, but room is an issue. These plants grow big enough once mature should provide me with enough berries. I really would like to add an early variety, the above is mid, mid-late, and late. To cover the whole season an early is needed. I'm thinking of Spartan, probably the best tasting early NHB.

Oh yeah,Spartan may be my favorite NHB.
By the way,nice work on your plantings,Drew. Brady

I would like ti buy some Ka-Bluey Blueberry seeds ! If you know where i can buy some would you please let me know ! earl2@hotmail.ca

To address plant patents A plant patent is valid for 20 years, during that time ALL asexual propagation (e.g. Rooting cuttings, tissue culture, grafting, ext...) is prohibited by law, yes, this includes a home gardener rooting one for their own use... still illegal. With that said Vaccinium 'A-257' is not patented But it does have a trademark name (Ka-Bluey) with the trademark being held by the University of Arkansas. A trade mark does not prevent legal propagation so yes, you can legally propagate Vaccinium 'A-257' but you can not call the resulting plant ka-bluey without permission of the UofA and paying royalties.

I'm no fan of the Gurney/Henry Fields/(etc.) conglomerate (the only source for Ka-Bluey) & was none too pleased that they sent the plant a month before the snow melted enough to plant it (in north central Wisconsin, zone 4a). It took about 5 years for it to recover enough to give me any fruit worth mentioning (and I'm afraid the local rabbits did love it--any branch that grew out of the cage it was in got rabbit-pruned over winter)...

But when it gave me its first real crop, I have to admit, it blew my 4 other blueberries (Patriot, Northblue, Blue Ray & a bush that was on the property when we moved there) out of the water for flavor. Compared to the Ka-Bluey, the others tasted insipid. Then we moved. If I ever plant blueberries again, I will plant Ka-Bluey.

Ka-Bluey is my favorite as well. The flavor has a hint of peach in it.... at least mine do.

Our state has a huge blueberry industry so new cultivars have to pass rigorous tests. They finally let it in last year. It grew fast last year, I will get a taste shortly.

I also added Raz, to have a little raspberry flavor with my peachy Ka-Bluey.

Drew - I ordered a couple of Razz a few years ago when they were reintroduced. I had this empty corner next to my house, so I put two of them there with a gooseberry in between them...edible landscaping. The Razz flavor seems to taste just like e regular blueberry though. I'll try them again in a couple of weeks.

I grow figs and I hear berry tones, banana in taste descriptions, and their is a hint, but not much more. I suspect the same here. So far my favorite blueberry is Cara's Choice. It has a very rich flavor and is fairly firm too. It's not a great producer. I doubt I will add many more. I would like to get a good processing blueberry, one to cook with with wild flavor. I thought about adding wild Maine blueberries, but figured productivity of the low bushes is not high. Northland is another possible option.

I received a Ka-Bluey, I believe, free from Gurney's back in either 2013 or 2014. They offered "Free Premium blueberry plants" and all you had to pay was $3 shipping. There was no name, but Gurney's "believes" it was Ka-Bluey. The plant is still alive, produces about 5 blueberries a year, but is very healthy. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong, but I love the taste of those 5 blueberries. I'm going to do some research to see how to improve my growing conditions. I've never grown a blueberry plant, and wouldn't have if these weren't being offered for free. I have nothing to compare them to and have no idea how may fruit are expected on one plant.