
California's blueberry boom (2009) - stevewilhelm
http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-blueberry27-2009may27-story.html#page=1
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russell
I grew up in eastern Maine half a century ago. We had a rural property and
grew several acres of low bush blueberries only a few inches tall but quite
lush. The land was acidic and rocky, essentially worthless for anything else.
Cultivation was as close to natural as you could get. If you wanted
blueberries, you burned the land in the early spring. Burning was a
neighborhood thing. Someone would light the fire line and the rest of us would
carry around 5 gallon Indian pups (brand name I think). Do that for a few
years and you had a field of blueberries. Actively cultivated blueberry fields
were burned every other year. I never looked into the reasoning; it was
tradition, but I suspect it was a combination of clearing out dead matter and
maintaining the acidity. In August we would rake the blueberries and take them
to the local cannery. A blueberry rake is a rectangular scoop about 9 inches
wide with wire tines.

The LA Times is dead wrong about the flavor comparison. Maybe all high bush
varieties are mild and flavorless, but Maine wild blueberries are really rich
and flavorful. Mmmm blueberry pie. A Maine summer was strawberry pie in June,
wild raspberry and blackberry pie in July, and blueberry pie in August. And
lobster and clams so that it wasnt all pie, pie, pie.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I grew up in Iowa, and it was fresh garden vegetables all summer, squash in
the fall, our own meat all year, milk from the cow with butter and cream as a
bonus. And we didn't value it, nosir not at all. A summer tomato was about as
worthless as you can get - we'd play tomato war as kids.

Nowadays I try to get some of that back by planting my own garden.

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comrade1
Those things they sell as blueberries in the stores really aren't blueberries.
They appear to be some giant flavorless mutant. I don't know if it's because
they give them too much water or if the flavor has been bread out of them, but
they're a pale comparison to wild blueberries.

My parents would drive my brother and I, just little children, to the middle
of nowhere in WI and push us out of the car with a few buckets and then return
around sunset to pick us up. We were supposed to have the buckets full of
berries by then. My brother, 3 years younger than me, would spend most of the
day eating his berries and so it would be up to me to fill his buckets too.

This was in the Midwest but I've met a couple of Finns that had the same
experience growing up.

And then we had to eat blueberry pie, blueberries with ice cream, blueberry
crumble, blueberries with cream, blueberries, blueberries, blueberries until
the Winter.

Also, one time we saw a bear lying in the middle of the berry bushes scraping
its arms along the bushes pulling all of the berries to its mouth. It was much
more interested in the berries than a couple of defenseless corn-fed children.

~~~
tomkinstinch
> Those things they sell as blueberries in the stores really aren't
> blueberries.

The is absolutely true. My family owns a pick-it-yourself blueberry farm at
the top of a mountain in the Hudson River Valley of NY. Prior to 100 years ago
it was worked as a vegetable farm, but then the fields were left fallow and
wild blueberry bushes popped up. My family has owned it for about 70 years,
and most of the bushes are a bit older than that. These are high-bush
blueberries, 8-12 feet tall. You can pick the berries standing up with a
bucket hanging from your neck. The flavor of the berries is very potent
compared to store berries, and they are much smaller. They're incomparable
with mass market berries. They're also more delicate, and have a shelf life of
only a few days in the fridge once picked (though they can be spread on cookie
sheets and frozen for greater longevity).

My childhood black lab would run around with us plucking berries with its
mouth as the family picked into buckets. One of my favorite memories of summer
in the Northeast.

From the berries we would make pies, jams, cakes, muffins, and our personal
favorite: "blueberry pizza," made from unsweetened pizza dough onto which
blueberries were spread with a bit of butter and a light dusting of cinnamon
and sugar.

Happy to answer any blueberry questions folks may have.

~~~
joshu
Would a blackberry bush live in my yard with just rainfall? Or is it to dry in
the bay area?

~~~
tomkinstinch
Blackberries are hardy, and will grow well in many climates that get rain. You
may be able to grow them in the Bay Area, with limited productivity. Of course
you'd have better luck with some irrigation, or at the edge of your yard if
you use sprinklers. They can spread broadly though, so much so that in certain
areas they can be invasive (Portland, OR, for example). Planting blackberries
is not something to enter into lightly since they're a pain to remove (quite
literally; there are thorns).

Blueberries on the other hand are more difficult: they require bright (but not
necessarily direct) light, ample rainfall, acidic soil (pH 4-5), and limited
competition. We frequently have to cut away grape vines that grow on bushes
and block sunlight. Birds, bears, and other woodland creatures also love
blueberries so you have to beat them to the bushes.

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corysama
Am I missing some context here? Why is this getting voted up on Hacker News?

~~~
stevewilhelm
OP here, noticed that we now have California grown, relatively inexpensive
blueberries that I don't recall seeing when I was a kid.

Turns out it's another example of how markets can be disrupted by hacking. In
this case, the 'hack' was breeding blueberry plants that can grow in
California. Farmers find gaps in the growing periods to deliver their more
expensive product when growers in other states can't deliver.

~~~
rasz_pl
and by hack you mean exploiting subsidised water?

~~~
Aloha
All of California is exploiting cheap water - normally this isn't a problem,
there's more than enough to go around - now, not so much. (it's not
subsidized, the costs to bring it to the users are pretty evenly passed along
to the users of the water)

Los Angeles relies on water brought from the Owens valley, the California
water project, and the Colorado river, San Francisco from water brought from
Hetch Hetchy, and so on, really, the entire west, and the settlement of the
American West is frequently a story of water.

Most large cities across the world import water, NYC, Rome, London, etc -
agriculture is no exception to this trend.

~~~
reality_czech
Not all of California is exploiting cheap water. Some of us (the ones who live
in cities) are paying a high price for it and using it sparingly. City water
use is less than 20% of the total California water use. The almond crop alone
uses more water than all the city residents in the state.

It's hard to make a blanket statement about how much California farmers pay
for water since it varies a lot. Some pay literally nothing, due to antiquated
water rights laws. Others pay per acre-foot, but usually less than a tenth of
what city residents pay. Still others can't get water at any price, because
giving water at artificially cheap prices to the first two groups has left
nothing to spare. And most agricultural water supplies aren't metered or
monitored except at the very roughest level.

However, due to widespread public ignorance and the agricultural lobby, the
conversation about growing rice in the middle of a desert (by flooding the
fields) will never be had. Instead we get bans on restaurants serving people
glasses of water unless they request it, and similar stupidity.

~~~
Aloha
In fairness - I'd suggest that the water delivered to a farm for irrigation is
of a vastly different quality than that which is delivered in the city for
drinking, the distribution systems are also much cheaper for irrigation as
well.

