Plant of the Week
Cranberry
Latin: Vaccinium macrocarpo
While on my Canadian tour in the summer, I had the opportunity to visit the
Cranberry Capitol of Canada in Bala, Ontario.
As with many self-proclaimed "capitols," it was a fairly modest affair with
only one grower. But, it was pretty far north and the farm was in a tourist area
that celebrated "Cranberry Days," so it all made sense - especially to the
Chamber of Commerce. As this was my first visit to a cranberry bog, I had to
check it out.
Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) are trailing, mat forming,
evergreen shrubs that belong to the azalea family and are closely related to
blueberries. They grow naturally in peaty bogs in the northeastern states and
adjacent areas of Canada.
The trailing stems may be a yard or more long but fruiting is primarily on
short, foot-long side branches that are crowded with the small half-inch long
shiny leaves. The four-parted pinkish blooms appear in June and are borne on a
long, gracefully bent peduncle that resembles the neck of a crane, hence the
name cranberry.
The marble-size red, sour berries begin ripening in September and October.
Traditionally, harvesting was from wild bogs using a hand scoop. But today,
cranberries are grown in manmade bogs, not unlike shallow catfish ponds, with
harvest done by various types of mechanized strippers and beaters.
For berries destined for the fresh market - only about 5 percent of the
cranberry harvest - mechanical strippers that comb the berries from the vines
are used. For processed berries the bogs are flooded and harvested using
floating beaters that knock the fruit from the vine. The berries are then herded
to a floating line where they congregate in a sea of red.
To protect the plants during winter, bogs are flooded where they freeze into
a solid block of ice. Then every couple winters they drive across the ice and
scatter an inch of sand to keep the vines growing vigorously.
Cranberries have been grown commercially since the 1850s and are an important
crop in Wisconsin and several New England states. Wisconsin has about 13,600
acres of cranberry bogs and produces about $75 million of fruit each year, the
majority of which is sold through the Ocean Spray marketing cooperative.
In the early 1990s, the medical community began to better understand the role
of diet in disease prevention and a new class of compounds, collectively called
phytoceuticals, began to be discussed. Cranberries, and especially juiced
cranberries, were high on the list of foods known to elicit positive dietary
effect on disease development.
Proanthocyanidins found in the fruit prevent bacteria adhesion to tissue and
are known to reduce urinary tract infection and reduce bacterial gum disease.
Then medicine discovered antioxidants and their role in protecting cells from
damage. Of 19 commonly consumed fruits, cranberries had the highest level of
antioxidants.
Cranberry farming is controlled by a market order, meaning that farmers can
grow as many acres as they wish, but they can only sell a prescribed amount of
fruit. With the good news from the medical community, Ocean Spray launched a
marketing deal with one the big soft drink bottlers to distribute cranberry
juice and a lot of new cranberry bogs were planted.
But, as often happens, the increased production got dramatically ahead of
consumption. The expanded line of cranberry juice drinks hit the marketplace at
the same time as the other new healthy drink of the 90s, bottled water. We all
know which beverage won that competition.
Suddenly, cranberry prices fell from about 60 cents a pound to 18 cents, and
farmers began to look for villains to blame. They didn’t have to look far when
they found that the executives at Ocean Spray were splitting millions of dollars
of annual bonuses while many growers were on the brink of financial disaster.
Such is the life of the farmer.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
November 28, 2003
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