How Many Different Varieties Of Blueberries Are There? | Wild To Rabbiteye

Blueberries come in five main cultivated groups, with hundreds of named cultivars and no fixed total that stays the same year after year.

If you were hoping for one neat number, blueberries don’t play that game. The real answer depends on what you mean by “varieties.” Some people mean broad plant types, such as northern highbush or rabbiteye. Others mean named cultivars like Bluecrop, Duke, Legacy, or Climax. Once you split the question that way, the picture gets much clearer.

At the broadest level, growers in the United States usually sort cultivated blueberries into five groups: northern highbush, southern highbush, rabbiteye, lowbush, and half-high. Inside those groups sit hundreds of named cultivars, and breeders keep adding new ones while older ones fade out of nursery lists. So the tidy answer is this: there are a handful of main blueberry groups, but the number of named blueberry varieties is large and always shifting.

What Counts As A Blueberry Variety?

This is where many articles get slippery. In gardening talk, “variety” often gets used as a catch-all word. In plant breeding, people may mean a species, a type, or a cultivar. Those are not the same thing.

Here’s the plain-English version:

• Species are the wild botanical building blocks.
• Types are the broad cultivated groups growers talk about most.
• Cultivars are the named selections sold for home gardens and commercial farms.

That distinction matters because one person may say there are “five varieties” of blueberries, while another says there are “hundreds.” In their own way, both are right. One is counting types. The other is counting named cultivars.

How Many Different Varieties Of Blueberries Are There In Practical Terms?

In practical grower terms, there are five main cultivated blueberry groups grown across the United States. That breakdown is used by extension programs because it tells you how a plant behaves in the ground: chill needs, berry size, bush height, harvest timing, and climate fit. Oregon State Extension lays out those five groups clearly, and Rutgers notes that highbush blueberries alone have produced a large number of diverse named cultivars through breeding over the last century. Oregon State Extension’s cultivar overview and Rutgers’ home garden variety sheet are both useful on that point.

So if your question is about the major buckets, the answer is five. If your question is about named blueberries you can buy, plant, or read in nursery catalogs, the answer is far higher than five and keeps moving as breeding programs release new stock.

The Five Main Blueberry Groups

Each group has its own personality in the field. Some handle cold better. Some wake up early in warm winters. Some are bred for fresh shipping, while others shine in jams, freezing, or machine harvest.

1. Northern highbush — the classic commercial blueberry in many cooler regions.
2. Southern highbush — bred for warmer areas with lower chill demand.
3. Rabbiteye — tall, tough, and widely grown in the South.
4. Lowbush — the smaller, spreading type tied to wild blueberry production.
5. Half-high — crosses that blend lowbush hardiness with highbush fruit traits.

That list gives you the cleanest answer to the “how many kinds are there?” question. Still, it only gets you halfway there, because shoppers and growers usually care about named cultivars inside each group.

Why There Isn’t One Fixed Number

Blueberries are still active breeding material. New releases come out for flavor, firmness, shelf life, machine harvest, heat tolerance, and disease pressure. A cultivar that was common twenty years ago may still exist, but it might no longer be a nursery staple. Newer cultivars can replace it in catalogs, farm plantings, and breeding programs.

USDA’s blueberry research pages also note that cultivated blueberries are unusual because many cultivars come from crosses between two or more species. That helps explain why the family tree gets messy fast. USDA ARS notes on blueberry genetics make that point plainly.

Blueberry Group	Main Traits	Common Use Or Fit
Northern highbush	Cold-hardy, upright, large berries, broad commercial use	Fresh market, home gardens in cooler regions
Southern highbush	Lower chill need, earlier season, heat fit	Warm-climate farms, early fresh fruit
Rabbiteye	Vigorous bushes, late bloom, strong yields	Southern gardens and commercial fields
Lowbush	Short plants, smaller berries, spreading habit	Wild-style harvest, processing, frozen packs
Half-high	Compact plants, cold tolerance, mixed parentage	Cold zones, smaller yards
Wild selections	Local adaptation, uneven berry size, strong flavor	Breeding material and niche production
Hybrid breeding lines	Mixed species traits chosen for target traits	New cultivar development

Named Blueberry Cultivars Add Up Fast

Once you move from broad groups to named cultivars, the count shoots up. A single group can contain dozens of well-known names. Northern highbush alone includes long-running standards such as Bluecrop, Duke, Elliott, and Jersey, plus a long stream of later releases. Southern highbush adds names such as Biloxi, Misty, O’Neal, and Star. Rabbiteye brings in Climax, Brightwell, Powderblue, and Tifblue, among many others.

That’s why any article that gives one tiny number for all blueberry varieties feels off. The answer changes with region, nursery inventory, and whether you count old cultivars that still exist on paper but are no longer common in the trade.

What Gardeners Usually Mean By “Different Varieties”

Most home gardeners are not asking for a botanical census. They want to know how many kinds they might choose from. In that setting, the most helpful answer is: you’ll usually shop within one or two blueberry groups that fit your climate, then choose from a long list of named cultivars based on harvest season, flavor, berry size, and plant height.

That means your real choice is not “all blueberries on Earth.” It’s “which subset works where I live?” A Minnesota grower and a Georgia grower are not looking at the same list.

Climate Does More To The Count Than Most People Think

Blueberries are picky about chill hours, soil acidity, drainage, and bloom timing. So while there may be hundreds of named cultivars across the market, only a slice of them make sense in any one place. That’s why local extension sheets often feel more useful than a giant master list.

Cold areas lean hard toward northern highbush and half-high plants. Warm Southern areas often favor southern highbush and rabbiteye. Wild lowbush production sits in its own lane, tied to colder regions and a different style of management.

If you only count cultivars that are a solid fit for your climate, the number drops from “hundreds in the wider blueberry world” to a workable short list. That’s good news, because a shorter list makes planting decisions easier.

If You Want	Blueberry Group To Start With	What To Expect
Cold-hardy backyard bushes	Northern highbush or half-high	Good winter survival and steady home harvests
Early fruit in warmer regions	Southern highbush	Earlier ripening and lower chill demand
Tall, durable plants in the South	Rabbiteye	Strong vigor and heavy crops with pollination partners
Small native-style berries for processing	Lowbush	Short plants and intense berry flavor

Species, Types, And Cultivars Are Not The Same Count

This is the cleanest way to keep the numbers straight:

• Species count: botanists sort blueberries within the genus Vaccinium, and taxonomic treatment can shift.
• Cultivated type count: five main groups are commonly named in U.S. production and extension material.
• Cultivar count: there are hundreds of named blueberry cultivars, with old ones dropping back and new ones coming in.

So when someone asks how many different varieties of blueberries there are, the most honest answer is not a single number. It is a layered answer. There are five main cultivated groups, and within those groups there are many named cultivars—far more than most quick-answer posts admit.

A Few Well-Known Cultivar Names

To make that feel real, here’s a snapshot of familiar names growers and gardeners often run into:

• Northern highbush: Bluecrop, Duke, Elliott, Patriot, Jersey
• Southern highbush: Biloxi, Star, Misty, O’Neal, Jewel
• Rabbiteye: Climax, Brightwell, Powderblue, Premier, Tifblue
• Half-high: Northblue, Northcountry, Polaris, Chippewa

That list is still only a slice. Nursery catalogs, university extension sheets, and breeding programs stretch much farther than that.

So, What’s The Best Direct Answer?

If you want a short reply you can trust, use this: blueberries come in five main cultivated groups, and there are hundreds of named cultivars across those groups. There is no single frozen total because breeding programs keep releasing new blueberries and older cultivars cycle out of wide use.

That answer stays true whether you’re a shopper, gardener, or plain old berry nerd. It also sidesteps the trap of giving a fake precise number for a crop that keeps changing.