Another flooding technique cranberry growers use is known as late water. In modern cranberry production, holding late water refers to the practice of withdrawing the winter flood in March then re-flooding the bog in later April for one month. The most widely-known use of flooding in cranberry cultivation is for harvest.
Approximately 90 percent of the crop is harvested this way. Flood harvesting occurs after the berries are well colored and the flood waters have lost their summer heat.
The bogs are flooded with up to one foot of water. In order to conserve water, harvest is managed so water is reused to harvest as many sections of bog as possible before the water is released from the system. Flood water is recycled in the cranberry bog system, passed from bog to bog through canals and flume holding ponds and reused, often shared by several growers. For a summary of water use in cranberries, view our Water Use Fact Sheet.
Sprinkler Systems Sprinkler irrigation supplements soil moisture, protects the buds from spring frosts and the berries from fall frosts and cools the plants during intense summer heat. Randall grows Stevens variety cranberries on His berries are destined for juice, sauce and other processed products as he will only wet harvest his berries. The cranberry is a Native American wetland fruit that grows on trailing vines like a strawberry. The vines thrive on the special combination of soils and water properties found in wetlands.
Cranberries grow in beds layered with sand, peat and gravel. These beds, commonly known as bogs or marshes, were originally formed as a result of glacial deposits. Cranberries can be either dry harvested or wet harvested.
Dry harvesting uses walk-behind machines to comb the berries off the vines into burlap bags. Berries are then removed from the bogs by either bog vehicles or helicopters.
Dry harvested cranberries are used to supply the fresh fruit market. These cranberries are most often used for cooking and baking. In wet harvesting, the bogs are flooded. Cranberries have pockets of air inside so they float. Water reels are used to stir up the water in the bogs dislodging the fruit from the vine. Sometimes the sand is spread over the ice of a flooded bog. Other methods include dry sanding, by hand or with a vehicle, or barge sanding, on a flooded bog.
In the spring, the water is drained off, and the plants begin to grow. Sometimes the bog is flooded again briefly in April or May, to manage insects, weeds and disease. On many bogs, herbicides for weed control are applied in the spring, although some cranberry growers pull weeds by hand. In both spring and fall, to optimize the flow of water, the ditches around and between the bogs are cleared of mud and other impediments.
This is generally done with a mini excavator. As spring turns to summer, fertilizers are sometimes applied to support growth. Since cranberries do not self-pollinate, growers keep beehives on the bogs during bloom early June through mid-July , hoping the bees will pollinate the cranberry flowers. There are two basic methods of cranberry harvest — dry and wet. Urann had an idea to can the cranberries. This was a transformative innovation, as it made cranberries available in some form year round.
With the success and growth of his company, Urann decided to rebrand it in , renaming it the Cranberry Products Company, and along with three other growers, formed the cooperative that is now known world-wide. In , the named changed to the now familiar Ocean Spray.
The short answer is no. Cranberries actually thrive in what known as a bog, or an area is characterized by an acidic peat soil. Once they are cut, they are then corralled and removed from the water via suction, as seen here. However, the wet method is used primarily for berries that are meant for further processing, such as juice production or to make the beloved canned cranberry sauce. There are currently over varieties of cranberries grown commercially in the United States.
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