 I'm Chilp East and this is Shane Harris, we're with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and today we're going to talk to you about pruning rabbit-eye blueberries. Blueberries should be pruned to stimulate new growth and plant vigor, to remove dead or diseased wood, to produce the fruit load to make berries larger, to keep plants a manageable size for harvesting, and to provide air movement inside the canopy to produce disease problems. Blueberries have fruit on one year old growth so what grew last summer is what where our buds are that's going to bloom this spring and where our berries will be this summer. Any of your shoots that are near the ground or close to the ground when they have fruit they're just going to lay on the ground so those are some that we would might want to take out. The tall shoots that's way up over our head our berries are just going to get further and further away from us. One year old growth so whatever grew last summer has berries this summer so every year they're getting taller and taller that's more berries getting further away from us so it's our tall branches that needs to come down. If you look at this plant you'll see from waist high way up over head house where a lot of the new growth is that's where a lot of the berries are. The key to pruning is to get all these berries down in the chest high area so they're easier to pick. A pruning salt is an effective tool to remove some of the very large older canes at the base of the plant. This needs to be done every few years to allow new growth. These shoots if they have fruit on them and there's a flower bud there so it can have fruit a lot times they just lay over so if we would top them every time they grow 12 inches 18 inches that'll keep them branching. Although blueberry plants need less pruning than many other fruit plants pruning is still important in order to maintain plant vigor. Blueberry plants can put on a lot of new growth each year when pruned correctly. Take time each winter to prune your blueberry plants. Once completed the blueberry plant will have a combination of old growth and new growth. Pruning should be done every year to keep the plants healthy and productive. If you need any other information on pruning blueberries just contact your local Extension office.