Reka

Reka exists because of a shipment: in 1969 the USDA sent northern highbush seed from a batch of crosses to New Zealand, which at that point had no viable blueberry industry. Franklin H. Wood, working at the Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre in Hamilton, grew those Earliblue x Bluecrop seedlings out and eventually narrowed the field to seven elite selections, of which Reka was one; a US plant patent application filed in 1987 was granted in 1989 as PP6700. Yield is what put it into commercial ground on both sides of the Pacific, with the patent recording 9.3 kg per bush from the fifth season onward and roughly 95 percent of the New Zealand crop coming off before Christmas. Penn State's home-planting variety guide adds the trait home growers care about more: Reka adapts to a wider range of soil types than most highbush cultivars, which is unusual for a genus that normally insists on sandy, acidic, high-organic ground. It is chosen as a dependable early workhorse rather than as a premium dessert berry.