Maine's wild blueberries are not faring well in the heat and the dry conditions that have settled over three-quarters of the state in the last week.
Eric Venturini, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, said while it's too soon to offer an estimate, this year's harvest will likely be smaller compared to recent years.
First, too much rain in the spring and early summer made for poor pollination, he said.
"We had generally started to recover from that, and thought we might have a slightly below average crop, but OK," Venturini said. "The last couple of weeks — the last week or so in particular — we've seen the cumulative effects of this hot and dry summer. And the crop's really turned a corner."
Many farmers are making decisions in the next few days about whether to stop harvesting, Venturini said.
Lisa Hanscom, who runs Welch Farm in Roque Bluffs with her father, said she will rake whatever suitable berries are left. The crop was doing OK until this week, she said, when the heat dried up the remaining blueberries.
Welch Farm had 32 acres of wild blueberries that could have been harvested, and Hanscom estimates she will lose all but two acres of the crop.
"In my history — and in dad's history that he can remember, and he's 76 — we've never lost this much crop," Hanscom said.
Maine has produced about 80 million pounds of wild blueberries annually for the last three years, Venturini said. The last time Maine experienced a significant drought was in 2020, and the state's harvest dropped by 45%.
"I can't say whether we are near that this year; we're going to wait for the numbers to come in," he said. "But certainly the last week or so of the hot, dry weather, has not helped our industry at all."
Like most Maine wild blueberry harvesters, Hanscom does not have irrigation. Venturini said about 35% of harvesters have access to irrigation.
His group learned earlier this summer that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had canceled a $15.5 million grant for irrigation infrastructure.
"It certainly wouldn't have helped this year necessarily, but it would put us on the path to be increasingly resilient to these types of events in the future," Venturini said.
