Despite varied blueberry reports, average Maine harvest predicted

Despite varied reports on this year’s wild blueberry crop, the harvest likely will yield an average crop that could be larger than earlier industry estimates.

Although official numbers on the state’s wild blueberry crop won’t be available until after the first of the year, David Yarborough, wild blueberry specialist at University of Maine Cooperative Extension, predicted the total crop could come in between 70 million and 75 million pounds, which would be consistent with the 10-year average.

The crop last year was around 74 million pounds. Based on reports from Maine growers and processors, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in August estimated this year’s crop at 66 million pounds.

The reports Yarborough is getting from the field are “really spotty,” he said, with some growers reporting short crops due to winter kill, while others are reporting really good crops.

“At this point, we have to take it all with a grain of salt,” he said.

Winter kill, which occurs when the weather goes from cold to warm and back to cold again, affected a number of fields, Yarborough said.

“When we get warm days in February and March and then it turns cold again, the cold temperatures can injure the stems,” he said.

Harvesting has continued later in the year than usual, not because there are so many berries, Yarborough said, but because growers have had difficulty finding crews to do the raking. Although more and more fields are being harvested by mechanical harvesters, many growers, particularly on midcoast fields, rely on crews of rakers to harvest the berries.

“A lot of those crews are Hispanic,” he said. “With tighter borders, it’s getting tougher and tougher for them to get up here.”

The problem is not simply a lack of migrant workers. Wayne Ames, a small grower in Orland, for years has relied on local young people to rake his fields. But this year, the crews just weren’t there.

“This has been one of the hardest years I’ve had trying to find a crew and keep them,” Ames said.

There are plenty of kids, Ames said, but many of them are not willing to put in the hard work required to rake berries. Also, with a small operation such as his, which does not transport rakers, the young people have to rely on parents who can’t always get them to and from the fields. Ames said youngsters often must choose between working in the fields and participating in school sports, which gear up in August during the height of the harvest.

His crews numbered about six to eight people to cover the 12 to 14 acres of fields in production this year, he said.

“That’s a long way around the barn,” he said. “As a result, about one-quarter of my fields have gone unraked this year.”

He figures the 2 to 3 acres not harvested would yield anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 pounds of berries, a sizable loss for a small operation.

The forecast for Canada’s wild blueberry harvest is similar to that in Maine. Quebec, the country’s largest producer, saw a record crop last year, out-producing Maine which traditionally is the top producer of wild blueberries. Winter injuries to the plants there will cut that record 80 million pound crop almost in half, Yarborough said.

August estimates for the total wild blueberry crop, including berries from Maine, Quebec and other Canadian provinces, totaled 182 million pounds.

The demand for wild blueberries remains high and, with average crops, the price paid to growers has remained high, according to Yarborough. Prices are running between $1 and $1.20 a pound.

The bulk of the wild blueberry crop is individually quick frozen, and sold as an ingredient for other products. In recent years, however, processors have worked to broaden the consumer market for frozen wild blueberries and other newly developed products made from the berries.