Although the open ground season was not officially launched until July 4th, blueberries have already been harvested for a week at the Finck farm in the southwest of the Lüneburger Heide area. "We were able to start the first spate of harvests of our early varieties in time, although we would have expected a delayed start to the harvest given the difficult pollination. We even had to bring in bumblebees, which in turn cost us a fortune," says owner Andreas Finck. 
However, the overall outlook is satisfactory to good, Finck added. "If the weather plays along, we expect a good yield. We have almost double the hangings on the trees compared to last year, as we pruned our plants after last year's harvest. Of course, the volumes must be picked, which is becoming increasingly difficult in view of the shortage of harvest workers. The issue of high wages, i.e. the minimum wage increase, presents us with major challenges."
The Finck family's blueberries are delivered exclusively in wooden and cardboard packaging. The usual containers are 250 and 500 grams and 1 and 2 kg.
In this context, the blueberry producer also points out the extreme price fluctuations in the wholesale trade. "The first blueberries of this season were still offered at 11 euros/kg at the Hamburg wholesale market. Meanwhile, they have already fallen to 7.00 to 7.20 euros/kg. This corresponds to a price drop of almost 4 euros/kg within a week, which is mainly due to the increase in volume of domestic free-range berries. Luckily, no goods from Poland or Romania are on offer at the wholesale market yet. However, from mid-July onwards, there will certainly be further price reductions. So we can only hope that the season there won't last too long so that we can still get good prices for our late varieties."
The Finck family's blueberries can usually be offered until the end of August. "However, there have also been years when we were able to harvest marketable produce deep into September. In recent years, however, pests have increasingly caused us problems," says Finck, who currently produces open ground blueberries on about 20 hectares. "If we can finish this year's season with a good result, we plan to expand our plantation to 28 hectares. But we have three other farms, so blueberry production is primarily a seasonal sideline for me."
Blueberries have been growing and thriving at the Finck farm since the 1980s. About 80 to 85 percent of the yields are marketed via the Hamburg wholesale market. The rest finds its way to consumers either through the farm's own store or market traders in the neighborhood. "I still see further potential for regional blueberries, with the bigger varieties - diameter of 20 to 22 millimeters and above - finding good favor. Accordingly, in recent years we have been focusing mainly on larger varieties that could possibly be picked by machines, such as Legacy, Liberty as well as Bluecrop. We've also tried Duke, but it unfortunately gets too bushy at our location."
Images: Finck Heidelbeeranbau
For more information:
Andreas Finck
Finck Heidelbeeranbau
+49 163/8361251
Lindener Weg 11
29581 Gerdau
heidelbeeranbau-finck@web.de