A premium quality blueberry variety with large and uniform fruit size.
Rocio is a key variety sold under the name Atlantic Blue during the Spanish season.
Origin:
Grown in: Spain
Harvest & Availability:
March – June: from Spain
References:
From The Blueberry News, Spring 2007:
While in Spain we traveled to Seville to see Atlantic Blue’s blueberry operation. Ulf and Pepe Hayler showed us their farm nurseries and brand new packing facility. Cultural practices are much different there and the first thing you would notice is the blueberries planted in tunnels. Instead of pine bark the planting medium is a sandy soil that is bedded-up with two drip-emitters and cloth covering the bed. “Ever- greening” is the goal with no Dormex in use. There is no overhead irrigation for frost protection, although they did have a freeze 3 years ago that effected production. They are also experimenting with blackberries.
The first farm the Haylers showed us had 200 hectares in full production, and 20 minutes away was the new 400-hectare project which was more than 50% complete. Atlantic Blue and Hortifrut have merged to form EuroBerries Group with 13 new patented varieties of Southern Highbush plants. I was told that the only way to purchase the new patented varieties would be to sign a contract with Hortifrut to market the berries and pay annual royalty fees. We saw and tasted 3 of the new varieties and the quality of the berries was excellent – very large fruit the size of a quarter or bigger, sky-blue in color, with a firm, crisp, sweet taste.
