University of California

Ornamentals Produce Facts English

Return to Fact Sheet

Huckleberry

Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality

huckleberry031
Michael S. Reid

Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis

Maturity & Quality

Description

Vaccinium ovatum, Huckleberry is native to the Western coast in areas from northern California to British Columbia. Vaccinium is the ancient Latin name for blueberry, and the specific epithet ‘ovatum’ refers to the oval leaf shape of this species.

Quality Indices

Harvest branches when fully mature, without soft tips. This species is very long lasting with few postharvest problems. Thus, if it looks good at time of purchase it should perform well.

Ethylene Sensitivity

Huckleberry is not sensitive to ethylene.

Pretreatments

No pretreatments are required for huckleberry.

Storage Conditions

Huckleberry can be stored for extended periods, by enclosing pre-cooled bunches in a plastic vapor barrier and holding them at temperatures near freezing (0°C).

Special Considerations

Watch for excessive storage as depicted by fungal growth (fuzziness), and water soaked or discolored leaves. Their woody stems sometimes make it difficult to re-cut. Re-cutting this species is less critical than for other floral crops.

Date

October 2004

Use of Materials

The UC Postharvest Technology Center grants users permission to download textual pages (including PDF files) from this World Wide Web site for personal use or to reproduce them for educational purposes, but credit lines and copyright notices within the pages must not be removed or modified.

Except for these specified uses, no part of the textual materials available on the UC Postharvest Technology Center Web site may be copied, downloaded, stored in a retrieval system, further transmitted or otherwise reproduced, stored, disseminated, transferred or used, in any form or by any means, except as permitted herein or with the University of California's prior written agreement. Request permission from UC Postharvest Technology Center. Distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited.

The information in this fact sheet represents our best understanding of the current state of knowledge at the time of the latest update, and does not represent an exhaustive review of all research results. Links to any of these UC Postharvest Technology Center pages are permitted, but no endorsement of the linking site or products mentioned in the linking page is intended or implied by such a link.

How to Cite

Author(s) names. Initial publication or update date (located at the top). Title. Link to the specific Produce Fact Sheet webpage (Accessed date)

Example: Cantwell, M. and T. Suslow. 2002. Lettuce, Crisphead: Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality. 

http://ucanr.edu/sites/Postharvest_Technology_Center_/Commodity_Resources/Fact_Sheets/Datastores/Vegetables_English/?uid=19&ds=799 (Accessed January 18, 2014).

Top of page

CAES-logo-2023
plant-science-UCD-logo

 

Webmaster Email: postharvest@ucdavis.edu