Articles
The wild blueberry industry in North America
Article number
1357_47
Pages
329 – 334
Language
English
Abstract
Wild blueberries, principally Vaccinium angustifolium with a minor component of V. myrtilloides are early successional species that colonized the sandy acidic soil produced by the melting of the glaciers 10,000 years ago in North America.
As forest succession developed an overstory, wild blueberries were able to persist in the understory until disturbance events released them.
They provided an important food source for wild animals and for the Native Americans who learned to periodically burn over the forest and for European settlers who cleared the forests for fuel and lumber.
Management consisted of periodic burning fields to rejuvenate wild blueberry growth.
With the domestication and worldwide spread of the cultivated blueberry (V. corymbosum and V. virgatum), it became necessary to improve productivity and efficiency to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Fields were de-rocked and leveled to allow for mow-pruning and mechanical harvesting, and inputs increased to include, fertilizer, herbicides, fungicides, importing hives for pollination and irrigation.
This allowed productivity to increase from 300 to 5,000 kg ha‑1 with highly managed fields able to produce in excess of 10,000 kg ha‑1. Production of wild blueberries now averages 115,000 t with a high of 184,000 t in 2016. Integrated pest management techniques were developed and adopted to increase the effectiveness of and to minimize pesticide inputs.
Although cultivated lowbush plantings have been established on a limited basis, they have proved unsuccessful financially due to the high establishment costs and slow plant establishment.
Wild blueberries constitute a unique natural resource of high genetic diversity that exists in Maine, the Maritime Provinces and Quebec, that cannot be duplicated.
Wild blueberries are the most successfully managed wild crop in the world without equal.
As forest succession developed an overstory, wild blueberries were able to persist in the understory until disturbance events released them.
They provided an important food source for wild animals and for the Native Americans who learned to periodically burn over the forest and for European settlers who cleared the forests for fuel and lumber.
Management consisted of periodic burning fields to rejuvenate wild blueberry growth.
With the domestication and worldwide spread of the cultivated blueberry (V. corymbosum and V. virgatum), it became necessary to improve productivity and efficiency to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Fields were de-rocked and leveled to allow for mow-pruning and mechanical harvesting, and inputs increased to include, fertilizer, herbicides, fungicides, importing hives for pollination and irrigation.
This allowed productivity to increase from 300 to 5,000 kg ha‑1 with highly managed fields able to produce in excess of 10,000 kg ha‑1. Production of wild blueberries now averages 115,000 t with a high of 184,000 t in 2016. Integrated pest management techniques were developed and adopted to increase the effectiveness of and to minimize pesticide inputs.
Although cultivated lowbush plantings have been established on a limited basis, they have proved unsuccessful financially due to the high establishment costs and slow plant establishment.
Wild blueberries constitute a unique natural resource of high genetic diversity that exists in Maine, the Maritime Provinces and Quebec, that cannot be duplicated.
Wild blueberries are the most successfully managed wild crop in the world without equal.
Publication
Authors
D.E. Yarborough
Keywords
Vaccinium angustifolium, Vaccinium myrtilloides, Maine, Maritime Provinces, Quebec
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