USDA estimates drop in strong cranberry season
The 2.1 million barrels the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts for Massachusetts is about 9.3 percent below last year's crop of 2.3 million. But if these estimates are realized, this year would still tie for the third-best in history, according to Soares, the cranberry committee's executive director and former commissioner of the state's Department of Agricultural Resources.
The USDA has also projected a national crop of 7.68 million barrels, a drop of less than one percent over 2011.
"We agree with the USDA that this year's total U.S. cranberry crop will be a little smaller than last year's — but perhaps by as much as 3 percent to 5 percent versus the 1 percent in the latest USDA forecast," said Mike Stamatakos, vice president of agricultural supply and development for Ocean Spray, in a prepared statement. Ocean Spray is headquartered on the Lakeville-Middleboro line.
The USDA forecast pointed to hot and dry weather in New Jersey necessitating more irrigation than usual and cool, wet weather causing crop delays in some parts of Oregon and Washington. In Massachusetts, hot summer temperatures have caused heat stress, which Jeff LaFleur of the Carver-based Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association said raises the potential for disease.
Plus, "this year, we had really some strange weather conditions in the sense that we had a very warm winter, and so the vines ... came out of dormancy much earlier than normal," said LaFleur, executive director of the cranberry growers' association. Because the vines were so far advanced in early spring, he said, they were more susceptible to very cold temperatures
"We actually had to begin frost protection the end of March," LaFleur said, as opposed to mid-April.
Dawn Gates-Allen, who grows cranberries in Freetown for her family's Gates Cranberry, said an automated irrigation system helped keep her crop safe from frost.
"It looks like a good crop, but we still have a long way to go for them to grow," said Gates-Allen, communications manager for the cranberry grower's association. With harvesting not set to begin until after Columbus Day weekend, "we could have a terrible storm like a hail storm that could wipe the crop out."
In related news, the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association held its 125th annual meeting at the historic Hiller Farm in Rochester on Tuesday afternoon. More than 600 people, including a host of elected and appointed officials, attended the event. U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., and Therese Murray, president of the Massachusetts Senate, were among the speakers.
Source: www.southcoasttoday.com