More Cranberry Harvest Pics

We finished harvest today. Cold and rainy, glad we are done. These are picture of the past week.



Beating the berries off



Dad steering around a sprinkler in the back



Boomed cranberries in front of the elevator - loading the truck



Cranberries being loaded in the truck



Unloading at the receiving station - truck being filled with water to wash
the berries into the pool.



Berries traveling through the pool, up the conveyers onto the cleaning lines.

This is all new to me. Do you grow them in water like rice paddy feilds and then float the berries out after you beat them off the bush? or if not wht is the go with them all floating in the water? thanks for the pics always interesting to see how others farm especially on the other side of the world with out leaving the house

Just was asking some one the other day about cranberries, never seen it done. Where are you located? Can you explain how they are grown? Thanks for the pics.

Interesting!! Thanks for posting the pics.

Great pictures.
I think whatever the crop it's universal- It's great to get started, and it's great to finish!
No one has asked the most important question based on your earlier pictures. What's the connection between growing cranberries and red-haired children?

That must be Wisc. or west coast. No tall mountains in cranberry country here in Massachusetts. Basically the water reels are used to "beat" the berries off the vines. They move the water and not really the vines and since the berries have a small pocket of air in them they float to the surface.

The bogs are typically only flooded when wet picking or during the winter to protect from freeze. They can also be dry picked which is what I am doing in the picture. They go into burlap bags or boxes. They are then dumped into big plastic bins. We lift them off the bog with a helicopter because you can't drive tractors etc on the vines.

Here's the chopper lifting a stack of berries at the end of the day. We had three machines picking but the crop was very light last year. We got one and a half trailer loads while this year we picked three trailer loads. Mass had a bumper crop this, likely the best on record. Typically you don't switch back and forth between wet and dry pickings your bogs. The vines get "trained" to grow in a certain direction. You don't pick against the grain. Dry picking usually yields less berries then wet as it stresses the vines more but it's a higher price per barrel. The barrel is the official measure, which is 100 lbs. Dry berries are what you buy fresh and wet pick goes into juice, craisins or sweetened dried cranberries and many other products.

Thanks for the pictures and explanation of the harvesting process. I love to learn about the things folks in other parts of the country and world do. Rick in Texas

It is always interesting to see how the other half farms. We visited cranberry farm on Whitefish Point in the U.P. of Michigan a few years ago and I was amazed at the tools they use to establish a new bog.

All wet berries up here in NB. The blue berries are picked dry with similar equipment though.

Thanks for sharing and for the great pics. Very interesting.

I'll answer as much as I can in this one message.

As hotflasjr said below, the cranberries are only flooded for process fruit harvest - or water harvest as we say, only about 3 days per field.
The cranberry vine is a groundcover - the whole field is covered, there are no rows. Look down at the picture of the dry harvester, thats what the fields look like all year, other than the vine changing colour - green in spring summer, slowly turning red in the fall to burgandy colour in the winter.

You are absolutly right about harvest. We get all excited about starting. We are waiting, and waiting. You get eager and start a little early just to try the equipment out. Then three days into full harvest you start counting down the days until you are done.

My cran babies as we call them - the red heads keep us going. My daughter, Clarajust turned 7 - she is a full red head like her mother and little Jack is 18 mo but mow he is blond just like I was. I'll put mor epics up later.

Hey hotflashjr, I'm surprised you guys still use helecopters, too expensive out here in BC. We still use them for fertlizing, but he will only come in for dad if he is doing a few of the neighbours - about 300 acres. I remember a helicopter pulling totes when I was about 5 or 6, but that is when everyone went to water harvest.
I have a furford - or western as well, I actually like it better than the darlingtons, but I got a good deal on them so thats what we use most.

Fascinating! Thanks.

Furfords all the way. We have a guy out here who makes Eastern's, his version of the Western. Nice machines and a bit upgraded from the Western even. I personally don't like the Darlingtons. The boxes are a pain to deal with compared to the bags.

Some guys have tried all terrain Moffet type forklifts and small cranes to lift berries but it's really not any cheaper when you rent or buy another machine. Lots of guys are switching to liquid fertilizer through the sprinkler system though instead of flying it on. I know plenty of guys who hand spun their fertilizer on this year too, well anyone that doesn't sell to Ocean Spray anyways.

I think in BC you guys also sand the bogs in the winter like down here. This machine holds roughly a yard of sand. We flood and freeze the bogs in the winter then go drive on the ice and spread the sand. The sand melts through the ice and down into the vines. This promotes new vine growth. The older bogs here are all peat bottom with sand on top, or most of the newer are mostly gravel base with sand on top. This sander is 4x4 and makes a days work a lot of fun slipping and sliding around on the ice.

I wish we could sand easily. It doesn't freeze here - at least not more than a week. Most of the winter will be damp and cool 3-5 degrees Celcius or high 30'sF.
Here is a picture of my pruner - bet I could modify and put a sanding box on like yours.


I was actually thinking of mounting a couple of furford heads in place of the pruner head, a conveyer or two and pull a trailer befind behind that unit for fresh fruit.

My Darlingtons use sacks, which are ok. We just leave everything on the ground until the end of the day, then drive the gator and a trailer with the grain of the vine to collect the sacks. We then load up the totes on the dykes. This is the second year I picked a couple fields for fresh - the transition is getting better but it isnt very efficient. If I can get those fields to hold water - that really is my problem- then I will flood off after to get all my fruit out. I probably left 35% in the field this year. The other problem I had was poor fruit colour. We need to get the fresh picked by the end of September for our Thanksgiving. I had to stop twice and wait for the fruit to darken - then it was getting damp so maybe a dryer is needed too.

Here is an updated picture of my kids and dad and I on the last nice day we had.

really neat stuff!

Hey HotFlashJr, I have a couple questions about your furfords. Email me direct so we dont clutter this up anymore. Email should be open otherwise go to my website contact page. I will eventually get your email. Grant
Yellow Point Cranberries