The sunny and arid Fourth of July weekend was ideal for backyard barbecues, picnics and trips to the beach. But for blueberries? Not so much.
The fruit that grows wild along the rocky barrens of Washington, Knox, Lincoln and Hancock counties is parched. A dry spring was good for honeybees, but not for the sweet, indigo berries synonymous with Maine summers.
“There is usually enough blueberries for pies by July 4,” David Yarborough, wild blueberry specialist at UMaine Cooperative Extension, said. This spring, at the school’s research farm in Jonesboro, less than 3 inches of rain fell each month in April, May and June. The deficit was more than an inch shy for lowbush blueberries to flourish. Located in crucial Washington County, home to 90 percent of the state’s blueberry production, the tally is a key yardstick.
“It’s only two-thirds of what we needed. Plants need moisture. It was good pollination weather this spring, but berries need moisture to develop and to fill out,” Yarborough said. “We will always have blueberries; the question is how many.”
As Maine’s blueberry farmers enter the high-stakes month of July, most growers are taking a wait-and-see attitude while keeping a sharp eye on the forecast.
“It’s been an abnormally dry year. Once you get into mid-June, you start ample moisture for plants to have maximum growth and berries to size up,” David Bell, general manager of one the state’s largest blueberry producers, Cherryfield Foods, said. “What’s needed is a good soaker.”
The company, with thousands of blueberry acres from Cherryfield to Machias, has an irrigation system, but “Mother Nature always does it best,” Bell said. Many of the 500 blueberry growers in the state can’t afford the pricey watering systems and rely on rain. The lack of precipitation this season “is far from ideal for folks without irrigation,” Bell said.
With rainstorms hitting multiple Maine counties over the weekend, some relief has come. Family run companies such as G.M. Allen & Son Inc. were ready.
“Anything can change very quickly,” Annie Allen, vice president of the small Orland-based producer, said. “I don’t think we are at a critical point yet. It’s more dormant here now. If we get this rain, we will be OK.”
Her brother Martin Allen is slightly more alarmed by what he’s seeing in the fields.
“It’s pretty scary. We have few blue ones, and they are very small. If this keeps on another week, we will be in big trouble,” he said.
Coming on the heels of two stellar years for blueberry growers, even if the dry spell persists, the industry should weather the storm.
According to the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, 2014 and 2015 were the second- and third-largest harvests on record. The back-to-back bumper crops produced more than 100 million pounds of blueberries each year. And because 99 percent of Maine’s wild blueberry crop is frozen and sold in grocery stores all year, supplies are far from dwindling.
“Right now we have an oversupply situation,” Nancy McBrady, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, said. A return to average crop size of 70 million to 80 million pounds may actually help, she said.
With a late July and August harvest on the horizon, no one’s crying the blues yet.
“The good news is we haven’t had a lot of hot weather. No rain and hot weather is bad. In cool weather, plants seem to do OK because you don’t see much stress on the plants,” Yarborough said.
Though optimistic, between now and August, an even rain has to fall every week.
“I don’t think we are in a crisis situation just yet,” McBrady said, “but we still have a ways to go.”
