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Blueberry prices down, small wild farms may disappear

frozentripper

frozentripper

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Bancroft, Ontario, SE Algonquin
Prices may be down by as much as 2/3s... maybe good for buying a basket at a roadside stand this year if you can find any but the small wild blueberry growers may go out of business. Blueberries are an excellent source of antioxidants and the product has become popular to the point where industrialized operations can market on large scales and at lower prices. This includes the big, somewhat tasteless blueberries sold in grocery stores that in no way match the taste of wild-grown.

The report is from Maine, the same sort of thing has been reported from Canadian maritime provinces.

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/06/...a-growing-fear-fewer-maine-blueberry-farmers/
 
I've got a nice crop of them coming up in my front yard inside of Raleigh city limits. Hopefully the wildlife doesn't clue in to how tasty they are (I have yet to get any apples from my front yard thanks to the squirrels... and the birds make off with most of my grapes).
 
Magnus,

I have yet to get any apples from my front yard thanks to the squirrels...
Click to expand...

There are about a dozen apple tree near the house... crows and blue jays peck holes and deer are always waiting to move in when nobody's looking. Once I found a young bear asleep at midday in the tall grass next to an apple tree... it didn't run off very fast, probably too full of apples.

Here's the wild blueberry farm nearby.

http://kellysberryfarm.com/about-us/
 
Not all wild blueberries are the same.. Our are not transplanted.. And they are not a garden plant as they are about 8-12 inches high .. Its a good bit of work for one person to pick enough for a pie. That field near home is 20 acres and takes hours of backbreaking work to pick from. Its not a farm.. The berries happen. Mostly here there and not a lot in one spot to gather aside from a snack but Washington County is almost all berry fields in some areas.
The berries will go on but what is to become of the farms is another matter.
and what will become of this?
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13693
 
Kim,

Its a good bit of work for one person to pick enough for a pie. That field near home is 20 acres and takes hours of backbreaking work to pick from
Click to expand...

There are ways to make picking easier if it isn't an absolutely wild field... running a mower over the plants will help keep the berries above the stems next year so that they're easier to get at. And a blueberry rake (actually looks more like a comb that will detach the berries) to collect them.

The pioneer method was to burn the blueberry fields every several years to keep production up and to kill weeds.

Even at Kelly's farm, u-pick blueberries were a lot of work just to get enough for several desserts and they may have gone to mechanical harvesting.
 
It's been a couple years since I last stopped to buy a pint of blueberries from a roadside stand. The prices have kept me at bay, though I don't begrudge them earning their cash after a hard day picking. In the south of the province here there are berry farms with a good supply; larger plump berries, but lacking the punch of flavour their tiny cousins pack up north. And of course there are bushes and root stock available so I could grow my own. I was at a Mennonite farm this spring looking over some fruit trees for sale with my brother and s-i-l; there were blueberries also. I didn't buy anything; I was just along for the ride, like the farm dog who needs a good airing once in awhile, eyes closed and tongue drooping feeling the wind sweep in through the open car window, barking happily at the passing neighbour dogs. Well, I don't bark. Where was I ? Oh yeah, I do have two cherry bushes from the same farm, having been developed from an ag experimental farm in Alberta. Imagine that, picking sweet cherries, but without a ladder. I have the space for super duper blueberry varieties in my yard, if I could manage to grow them, but I still savour the wild kind growing up north available trailside or roadside. Whichever you pick. (sorry for that pun.) Maybe next time I'll stop and peel a few dollars from my moth eaten wallet, and reacquaint myself with real wild flavour.
 
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frozentripper said:
Kim,



There are ways to make picking easier if it isn't an absolutely wild field... running a mower over the plants will help keep the berries above the stems next year so that they're easier to get at. And a blueberry rake (actually looks more like a comb that will detach the berries) to collect them.

The pioneer method was to burn the blueberry fields every several years to keep production up and to kill weeds.

Even at Kelly's farm, u-pick blueberries were a lot of work just to get enough for several desserts and they may have gone to mechanical harvesting.
Click to expand...
I know my berries.
Its absolutely a wild field.. I suspect the farms you are talking about have hybridized cultivars. And yes the fields are still burned though last year they were brushogged to get rid of the sprouting pine trees.

More work comes from having a dirty pint and a clean pint too. That makes about a two dollar difference on roadside stands. How much is it worth to have no leaves or stems?
Its kind of funny being told about blueberries. They are a big part of Maine and everyone has a patch. Wild. Sometimes we will not tell others of our secrets like you do in fishing.
 
Ohhhhh yeah, berry patches are a closely guarded secret.
 
The obvious question is why blueberry prices are plummeting. If you harvest the linked article close enough, it's because supply of the berries from both Maine and Canada far exceeds demand. And, of course, Big Brother Sam, in it's infinite redistributionist wisdom, is spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to buy up the unwanted berries. Lord knows what the federal government does with them. Throwing them in the garbage would probably be the most economically efficient thing.

I grew up every summer from ages five to 17 in Maine, and we frequently picked huckleberries, which are far more prevalent in the interior of Maine than blueberries. My grandmother and all the grandkids always loved picking huckleberries, and it didn't really take long to pick enough for several pies and desserts with cream.

Blueberries mostly grow in the two coastal counties tucked away in the southeast corner of Maine, which is, by the way, great ocean, river and lake paddling country. If you're ever there, have the blueberry or other fruit pies at the intergalactically famous Helen's Restaurant in Machias.
 
Glenn,


Big Brother Sam, in it's infinite redistributionist wisdom, is spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to buy up the unwanted berries. Lord knows what the federal government does with them. Throwing them in the garbage would probably be the most economically efficient thing.
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OY!!! Enough with the waste already! And with people starving in Africa, they're throwing them out?

Don't the words glug glug glug mean anything to those people? Besides the sounds of a boat sinking, of course.




off-dry-blueberry-v2-900x900.jpg
 
I have a teen grandson who drives me nuts when he eats. First of all he's fussy. Won't eat this, doesn't like that. And as if that's not enough to grind my gears sitting at the dinner table he also can't let food groups touch each other. Everything has to be in separate piles on his plate. If a pea even thinks about rolling over and touching his mashed potatoes the whole plate of food is a write-off. Drives me absolutely nuts. But maybe the kid has a point, because I also don't like certain food flavours "touching" each other. For example last week I was reading about this : https://www.hometownbrew.com/home . Blueberries and beer just don't seem right together, they shouldn't be touching in the same bottle no-way. I've tasted blueberry beer before and hated it. But maybe my grandson and I just have some growing up to do.
 
No I am in agreement Brad.. Cherry and blueberry belong in PIE.. not beer! I am thinking of PIE of those ilk for the Adirondacks.. I won't bring fruit flavored beer!
 
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Muskoka Lakes Winery actually produced some award-winning wines... probably not in keeping with the highest international standards adopted by steely-eyed connoisseurs, swirling the product around the palate rigorously, judging with sharp focus and grim intensity before spitting out and scoring.... yup, it stinks.

http://www.winealign.com/wines/47685...erry-Wine-2011

I hear they're serving it at trendy and upscale Deerhurst between Algonquin and Huntsville, where Shania Twain got her start... they don't impress easily it seems. Maybe it was that wine that made her lose her voice... dunno. Never mind, here's something that sells real good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqFLXayD6e8
 
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I don't know all that much about taste. Hold on a minute, let me start over. I don't know all that much about flavours and such, given some of the foods I eat you'd understand. However I've expanded my tastebud borders quite a bit since I was a young unfussy child. I ate anything. Well, except liver and onions. My mom kept trying to convince me "You're really missing something here. You see, it all depends how you cook it. You have to gently fry the milk-marinated liver in butter and onions, gently gently; then it's marvellous! Here, try some." I'd be a sucker and try some again...Aaaacck!!. My mom's baby blue eyes would dance as she coaxed me into agreement "Doesn't that taste lovely !?"
So this past May I was gazing into the dazzling baby blue eyes of a young beautiful sales lady standing elegantly across the counter urging me to try some mead "You're really missing something here. Try it. You'll love it." Miranda and I were in a honey operation in the foothills of Alberta wandering through the product line. Soap. Candles. Candy. Post Cards. Doo-dads. I'd been much happier outdoors soaking up the view of rolling hills with a backdrop of mountains, but it seems "my opinion was needed" indoors. Over across the room there was a bar set up offering sampling of the nearly two dozen kinds of mead for sale. My wife was on her third little sip test while I wasn't having any, no thank you. But then the blue-eyed glamour queen purred "This one here tastes smokey and dry, very much like scotch." A honey wine that tastes like scotch? Bloody hell, she's really scraping the bottom of the wine barrel if she thinks I'll fall for that. So purely out of spite I tried some. Wow. The gal was right. It did taste kinda like whiskey or scotch. Line 'em up, give this boy some room. I need to try some others. Fair enough, the others tasted aaacck, but that other one was quite good. So I bought a bottle. My tastebud borders had been expanded a little bit that day. Weird infused flavours can deliver something marvellous, sometimes. But I don't care how pretty your baby blue eyes are, I still hate liver and onions.
 
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