The Harvest is Months Away, But Growers Are Thinking Blue
Each year when winter is slowly replaced by high sun and rising temperatures, our thoughts naturally turn to planting. It means spring is on the way, and the time for taking advantage of the earth’s bounties is close at hand.
In Maine, Quebec and Eastern Canada, wild blueberry barrens are stirring. In early spring, plants begin to emerge from snow cover, and before too long, green leaves and white blossoms of fruit will appear. It’s a time when those who farm wild blueberry fields begin planning for late summer when they will finally burst with blue fruit.
Late winter on the wild blueberry barrens in Maine’s Washington County.
Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Leighton.
This year, wild blueberry plants have endured another harsh winter, but that’s part of their wild nature: they are naturally resilient to challenging winters in the Northeast. They have evolved to grow in acidic soil, thrive through wildly changing temperatures, and use their natural UV protection to survive unshielded in summer sun. In fact, these environmental challenges make them uniquely powerful when it comes to the phytonutrients they produce to protect themselves. Scientists believe that resilience may translate into superb disease prevention and aging protection when we eat them – that’s the unique power of wild.
Wild berries naturally have a distinctive taste and variations in color that their larger cultivated counterparts simply can’t match. In fact, winters with abundant snowfall are good for the crop. Snow provides protection to the plant as well as plenty of moisture, which can increase the size of the bud and the potential to have more fruit per plant. More fruit means more healthy, antioxidant-rich berries.
During March and April, growers spend their time assessing crop damage and pests in the field. They may order supplies necessary for the harvest season and to prepare fields that are “fallow” – non-crop bearing fields that are resting as part of their two-year rotation – and continue the mowing and burning of fields that would have begun in the fall. They may also prepare to bring in bees to pollinate the plants when spring is in full swing. Bringing bees to the fields is a necessary part of production, and every year wild blueberry growers import a billion bees to help pollinate their barrens. (You can read about spring bee pollination in this week’s Portland Press Herald). It’s all in service to the millions of pounds of wild blues that will be harvested in the growing areas in July and August.
But while it’s still early, and the fields are quiet and snow-covered, there’s time to reflect on the many things wild blueberries offer the area – not to mention kitchens and freezers all over the country. And it’s a perfect time to tip our hat to the growers who carefully manage and nurture them, right here in harvest country, all year long.
We have nature to thank for the wild blueberry. Wild, lowbush berries are naturally occurring berries that have been growing in Maine, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces for over 10,000 years. They differ from cultivated or planted blueberries – you can identify cultivated by their larger size – that are propagated, planted and harvested in commercial operations throughout the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Wild blueberries spread naturally and slowly here, where they survive in the glacial soils and northern climate, and those natural challenges only makes them special. Here are some of the unique advantages of the smaller, wild berry that is only grown in areas of the Northeast:
Antioxidant capacity. Wild Blueberries are being studied for their powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may help protect against diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
Genetic diversity. Wilds consist of hundreds of different naturally occurring varietal clones – a mix that provides the intense, complex flavors that range from sweet to tart.
Smaller size means higher skin-to-pulp ratio. Because of their size, foods that contain wild blueberries have more berries in every bite. That translates to more taste, more nutrition and more antioxidants.
Wild blueberries are a cherished part of Maine and Canada – and their wild nature is why.
See Wild Blueberry Country First Hand! It’s your last chance – there are only a few days left to enter to win Five Days of Food and Fun in the Land of Wild Blueberries.
If your entry is chosen, you’ll receive transportation for two to Québec City, Canada, 4 nights lodging in the historic Château Frontenac, and a $1,000 Wild Taste dining allowance to experience the city’s culinary delights.
Pollination relies on a strong bee population, and it is crucial to providing fruits and vegetables to consumers as well as maintaining local economies. The photo above, courtesy of Geoff Leighton, shows bees hard at work in a wild blueberry field in Down East Maine this spring.
Imagine looking down at a plate of food in a world without a bee.
For many of us, that plate would be very different, and that’s especially true for those who strive to fill theirs with healthy servings of fruits and vegetables.
Why is there such a buzz about the bee? Because we rely on honey bees to help pollinate about one-third of our food supply. That includes, to a large extent, the fruits and vegetables that provide us with our most concentrated source of nutrition.
In Maine and areas of Canada where wild blueberry harvests supply the nation, bees are held in high esteem: diets and economies depend on them. The hum we hear as we lean an ear toward a fruit-bearing field in the spring is music to the ears of farmers, and should be to consumers as well.
Bees & Blueberries
According to Virginia Knight, author of The Wild Blueberry Book, Maine’s wild blueberry crop has quadrupled over the past 25 years, and the bee is the reason why. The simple act of sucking nectar from the blossom and delivering it to the hive not only results in glorious honey, but provides us with food that ranges from berries grown in Maine to the almonds in California.
By renting honeybees from beekeepers every May during pollination season – usually two or more colonies per acre – growers can significantly increase their crop yields. Imported hives in the Down East area, where wild blueberries are grown, can number over 60,000, with up to 60,000 bees per hive. The more visits a bee makes to the blueberry, the more seed it contains, which in turn stimulates the size of the fruit. Most farmers strive to maximize return on their acreage by bringing honey bees to their fields, and different owners use different strategies with regard to how many times the bees are sent for pollination.
In Maine and Canada, bees pollinate the blueberries during a period of 3-4 weeks – unusually long, due to the variety of berries that blossom at different times. (You may recall that wild blueberry fields produce many different lowbush blueberry clones, which account for the unique variations in color and size.) While most commercial beekeepers are not in the honey-making business, Knight mentions beekeeper Lincoln Sennett of Swan’s Honey as an exception in her book. Sennett not only rents out bees but benefits from the honey for his own products.
Native wild bees also play an important role in pollination of blueberries, though they are less prevalent than in the past. While native populations fluctuate and are less dependable, they are used to pollinate many smaller, off-barrens fields. Native bees are exceptional pollinators and wild blueberries growers take care to preserve wild bees through conservation practices.
Above, Geoff Leighton navigates barrens in Cherryfield, Maine this spring, protected from the hives’ active bees. Land owners in the Down East area import over 60,000 hives to pollinate their wild blueberry crops. Photo by Anita Clearfield.
Greg Bridges, blueberry farmer and owner of Bridges Wild Blueberry Company, told Wild About Health about the New Brunswick area’s “Blueberry Bee” — a solitary bee that can work in colder conditions and still pollinate. Bridges said that wild blueberry farms must compete for attention with other more plentiful crops that attract native pollinators, and while a huge crop every year is no guarantee when only the native bee pollination is used, it’s a characteristic that makes smaller barrens unique.
Finding Answers for Collapse Concerns
In recent years, the shortage of bees to pollinate crops has resulted in what growers and scientists have considered a crisis. The crisis, termed CCD, which stands for Colony Collapse Disorder, is characterized by bees abandoning their hives. The resulting shortage of bees has a economic impact as well as a dietary one.
Some local farmers have said they have not been affected by a bee shortage, while others report a significant impact. Bridges credits dedicated bee keepers who keep their colonies strong as the key to preserving the population. While some blame commercial beekeepers who work their bees from location to location, some, like Sennett, attribute the wide and varied diet of crops to stronger, healthier bees. And, while culprits ranging from cell phones to pesticides have been blamed for CCD, a recent story from the Bangor Daily News reports that a virus might be responsible.
Companies like Wyman’s who have reportedly been affected by CCD have contributed funds toward research that will hopefully uncover the cause. At the University of Maine, Frank Drummond is currently testing bees as part of research into the cause of CCD. You can read about his interesting research methods.
Despite concerns, this season’s wild blueberry crop seems destined for success. The National Agricultural Statistics Survey report indicates that in New England wild blueberries were assessed at good to excellent development. Good thing – the blues will be responsible for thousands of pies, hundreds of buckles, and even a few martinis, if not a dog treat or two.
You have only to look to the Maine Wild Blueberry Queen to understand the berry’s ubiquity and the necessity of the bee. (She welcomes her successor this year at the Union Fair and Blueberry Festival taking place on August 20-27.) Clearly, the responsibilities of a royal go beyond just looking good in blue – ask any queen bee.
Recently, the Huffington Post shared their “berry busting myths” in an effort to set straight those un-indoctrinated into the berry vocabulary.
One of these myths concerns size: big berries are juicier.
Of course, it’s part of the long-held fiction that bigger is better. And there’s really no better time to be reminded about the mystique of the small wild blueberry and its inscrutable attraction – especially for those who live in areas of the country where it’s just about to flourish.
The Huff debunks this erroneous line of thinking by explaining that jumbo berries are often not big on flavor. In fact, the article states, the congregation of taste – and of nutrients – is in the skin. So, the higher the skin-to-pulp ratio, the better the taste and the bigger the health benefits. It’s the case with many berries, but the difference is most startling when it comes to wild blueberries.
They summarize it this way: “Tiny wild blueberries, for example, are far more flavorful than larger ones and can be bought frozen year round.” Don’t we know it! In areas of Maine and Canada the size myth is just one more laughable oddity that those in the outside world may be slow to grasp.
The Wild Blueberry Book – Learning the Language of Blue
The myth of “bigger is juicier” is one that a true berry aficionado shouldn’t be buying into. But not everyone, especially those who don’t live where wild blueberries grow, understand the mystique of the local berries. Luckily, there’s help.
As Virginia M. Wright points out in The Wild Blueberry Book, those unfamiliar with the wild blueberry might think they are looking at “baby” berries. But those tiny fruits are not immature berries. Wild blueberries found only in Maine and Canada have many characteristic differences when compared to highbush, cultivated berries found in other parts of the country. Being compact is just one of them.
Wright, a Senior Editor at Down East Magazine, presents a comprehensive primer of blueberry knowledge in her book, and it is a real charm. It provides an insider look from farmers and growers to scientists and festival workers. The mock monthly planner from a Midcoast Maine blueberry farmer is an appealing addition; it invites us in on a process that includes “putting on bees” and using a blower oil burner to throw flames on the fields during their burn cycle. It’s a reminder that these harvesting chores that provide year-round consumption are truly the responsibility of individuals.
In the end, it’s all about eating these fab fruits, so Wright generously includes recipes from the best: a prize-winning blueberry salsa, Blueberry Spice Whoopie Pies, a first-place winner in the Machias Wild Blueberry Cooking Contest, and Baked Stuffed Lobster, a show-stealing prize-winner that uses blueberries and crab meat in the stuffing.
Taste of the Season
Another interesting part of the wild personality of the indigenous blueberry is the variations of taste. As Wright says, one may be sweet, the other tart, one citrusy, one grapey. Individually, they offer a remarkable array of distinctions, while together the effect is a fusion of tart and sweet, strong and subtle, that creates a complex taste experience.
As Wright explains, the variations are a result of the different varieties that grow side by side. “One acre of wild blueberries typically contains well over one hundred varieties of the berry, each one as genetically distinct from the other as a McIntosh apple is from a Delicious,” she states in the book. This genetic diversity is responsible for the berry’s mysterious one-of-a-kind flavor and provides the mystique that simply can’t be captured in other parts of the world.
Maine produces about a third of the commercial blueberry harvest, and Washington County yields 65% of Maine’s total crop. Mid-summer is a perfect time to be in the towns that make up Down East Maine because of the buzz of blueberry anticipation. In June and July, the barrens are done showing off their blazing red color, and the wash of blue has yet to appear. It’s an expectant time for harvesters, who are concerned mostly with fertilizing fields and making preparations by transporting equipment onto the land. Small farmers are at work there, and the large blueberry processors like Jasper Wyman & Sons are also an area presence.
Some farmers have rakers who travel to work the fields by hand, while larger commercial farmers opt for machine harvesting. (Find out more about the harvesting process.) Travel in this part of the state, and you’ll always find lodging areas serving blueberry juice as well as blueberry-themed meals, and local restaurants will be filled with residents associated with blueberries in some capacity, whether it’s as part of a family farm, as a tractor owner, or as a plant worker from one of the larger local companies.
Down East: Abuzz with Berries
Wild About Health‘s recent travels along the coast to Down East Maine was an extravaganza of blueberry value-adds and stretched-out barrens. It was all punctuated in hyperbolic fashion by Wild Blueberry Land, reinforcing the idea that Down East Maine is truly Wild Blueberry country. It’s no wonder Wright covers this landmark in her book, and lets us in on its quirky beginnings.
Built in 2000, Wild Blueberry Land began as Marie Emerson’s dream. Emerson is a chef and wife of farmer and blueberry expert Dell Emerson, and she wanted to replace a stream of changing businesses that occupied a section of Route 1 in Columbia Falls with giant blueberry. And that’s what she did.
Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia Falls, Maine as seen from Route 1
The blue geodesic dome makes any passerby want to pull over to gawk or nosh. It’s ultimately a bakery inside of a theme-park, complete with miniature golf course and an inside teeming with pies, cookies, and blueberry-themed tchotchkes and jewelry. It’s weird, it’s big and blue, and it’s there to fill any gaps in your wild blueberry education if you are in need. Consider it part of the culture of the tiny, uniquely delicious berry that is truly a Maine obsession!
Celebrate blueberries!
Plan your trip to wild blueberry country to see it all first hand. Part of the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, which takes place this year on August 20 & 21, includes Blueberry Farm Tours. The festival draws thousands who come to experience the food, music, pie-eating contests, and unabashed fun.
A panoramic view of wild blueberry barrens near Meddybemps in Maine’s Washington County, taken today, March 24th. Over 60,000 acres of blueberry farmland stretch across Maine, providing an average 70 million pounds of berries each year. Photos courtesy of Geoffrey Leighton.
Spring is officially here, and for fields being prepared for the wild blueberry harvest, that means the first show of growth which evolves into the astonishing blue blooms that cover the land in late summer.
Maine and Eastern Canada is exclusive territory for wild blueberries. Over 60,000 acres of blueberry farmland stretch across Maine alone, providing an average 70 million pounds of berries each year. Native to these weather-challenged regions, wild blueberries are naturally resilient. They have evolved to grow in acidic soil, thrive through wildly changing temperatures, and use their natural UV protection to survive unshielded in summer sun.
Each wild blueberry crop is the result of a two-year cycle of variable and unpredictable conditions. Crop development is dependent upon the first season’s spring and summer, the extent of potentially injurious frost, the amount of winter snow that provides protection, as well as the next year’s spring and summer weather. Abundant snow is an advantage for wild blueberry production, and this year was a windfall. Snow, in addition to providing protection to the plant, provides plenty of moisture which can increase the size of the bud and the potential to have more fruit per plant.
The plant’s heartiness is all part of the mystique of this fabulous fruit: the result is a naturally healthy antioxidant-rich berry with a distinctive taste and variations in color that can’t quite compare to its cultivated counterparts in other parts of the world.
Snowy winters are beneficial to the crop and can mean bigger bud sizes and more fruit per plant. The spring season brings green leaves and white blossoms of fruit before late summer turns the fields blue.
These fields would not have seen much activity over the winter months. Growers usually spend little time on the barrens during the winter unless they are engaged in expanding fields or posting farm land to ensure protection from snowmobiles. Families that farm wild blueberry fields would have been doing seasonal winter work or working in other businesses. Some would likely have been engaged in off-season education in an effort to maintain knowledge of farming techniques and regulations, or traveling to farm shows in search of equipment and supplies or to purchase bees.
While these “first looks” at the spring barrens show them sporting some winter baggage, they will soon come to life and present green leaves and delicate white-pink blossoms. Those blossoms will gradually turn their eponymous blue in late July and early August before turning to a crimson red in the fall.
Here’s to a strong season for wild blueberry harvesters!
See Wild Blueberry Country First Hand! It’s your last chance – there are only a few days left to enter to win Five Days of Food and Fun in the Land of Wild Blueberries.
