AP News, August 27th, 2007
Two tractors move slowly through a field with mechanical contraptions hanging off one side that rake blueberries from low-lying bushes.
Walter Degreenia drives one of the tractors. His wife, Gail, stands on a back platform sorting through the berries as they are carried on a conveyor belt and dropped into crates.
The swishing sound of traditional hand-held blueberry rakes used by field workers is being replaced by the rumble of tractors across Maine's wild blueberry fields as growers turn to mechanical harvesters to pick the lucrative crop.
"On a good day, I can harvest 10,000 pounds with one machine," Degreenia said.
A decade ago, about 20 percent of Maine's 60,000 acres of blueberry fields were harvested by mechanical means. Today, it's about 80 percent as growers discover that it's cheaper to replace hand pickers with more efficient machinery.
The machines can harvest about 10 times what a typical person can harvest in a day with a hand-held rake, swiping it through the bushes over and over for hours on end.
Maine's wild blueberry industry, which dates back to the 1840s, counted on hand-pickers to get the crop for more than a century _ long after growers of other major crops turned to tractors and sophisticated harvesters.
But with the yearly harvest averaging about 70 million pounds a year _ up from under 20 million pounds before the 1980s _ wild blueberry growers have had a hard time finding enough people to pick all the berries.
Wild blueberries grow naturally in Maine and eastern Canada. They are different from cultivated berries, which are larger and grow on high bushes.
About 40 to 50 percent of cultivated blueberries are still hand-picked but the mechanization trend is happening in the dozen states where they are grown, too, said Frank Bragg, chief executive officer of the Michigan Blueberry Growers Association.
Recently, growers have turned mainly to migrant workers from Mexico and other Central American countries to pick berries. But with labor in tight supply, growers have also been turning to mechanical harvesters.
"Right now, you can't even get migrant workers if you want them, so that's what's driving this," said David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist and horticulture professor at the University of Maine.
Maine growers like mechanical harvesters because they do not have to manage hard-to-find workers and deal with government paperwork. The machines also result in lower production costs _ adding to the bottom line.
The early models often destroyed plants and had low yields compared to hand-pickers. But the newer models are efficient, with high yields.
And as the machines have improved, the state's blueberry growers have flattened and removed rocks from thousands of acres of fields to make them suitable for mechanical harvesters.
Nat Lindquist, vice president of operations for Jasper Wyman & Son in Milbridge, said half of his company's 7,000 acres are harvested mechanically. Some blueberry growers, he said, don't use hand-rakers at all any more.
"Over the years, the manufacturers have added more bells and whistles that have improved the quality and are picking most of the fruit," Lindquist said. "Prior to the improvements, they left a lot of the fruit on the ground."
Degreenia has raked berries or worked as a crew leader since he was barely a teenager. With mechanical harvesters, the work is less tedious, easier on his back and more profitable.
"This is great compared to what we used to do," he said.
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On the Net:
University of Maine Cooperative Extension: http://wildblueberries.maine.edu/
Jasper Wyman & Son: http://www.wymans.com/
