Growers Hunt for New Uses To Head Off Blueberry Glut

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | April 23, 2003 | BARBARA CARTON

[Carpet Kitten]

At the University of Maine, food science professor Al Bushway is three years into a study, partly funded by the blueberry industry, to see whether mixing wild blueberry puree into precooked burgers will prevent the off-taste of reheated meat.

Roughly 500 test hamburgers and chickenburgers later, there's hope, he reports -- so long as blueberries are kept to less than 3% of the ingredients. "We went up to 7%," Dr. Bushway says, "but you got a color effect that people may not want to see." By that he means bluish chicken.

[Carolina]

I love blueberries.

So does my four-year-old daughter.

Madame Blueberry: I'm so blu-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. I'm so blue I don't know what to do.

Sorry...couldn't resist. Thank goodness the VCR broke!

[larryjohnson]

I just ate a cup of wild Maine blueberries with NF yogurt. I get them free but my daughter gets plenty from her folks so she is happy to keep our freezer full. I am waiting for instruction to go out and help burn (prune)next year's field. I carry the 50lb water tanks to keep the fire out the woods(they lost a big maple a few years back). To day is her birthday so we get to go along to deliver BB and take her to lunch.

[CFW]

Hmm, I was thinking of planting some Kiwi vines, but maybe the money is in blueberries!

[netmilsmom]

Even in season (which is the end of June into July here) they are 2.50 a pint. These people are just greedy, and I don't mean the growers. We go "Up North" and pick our own for 10 cents a pound. We have films of my older daughter in her little purple flowered dress and the cute red pail they gave her, realizing that those round things she picked off the plant taste soooo good. She picked one off every plant then finally decided to eat out of Daddy's bucket!

[netmilsmom]

One actually "burns" the plants????

[Carpet Kitten]

Growing up on Long Island we had a couple of bushes in our backyard that produced berries every year.

OK, but my bushes don't have leaves yet this year. Is that natural, to your memory?

[PDMiller]

Michigan is a significant blueberry state. My hometown of South Haven hosts the National Blueberry Festival every year in early August (peak harvest).

You haven't lived 'till you've sipped on blueberry wine while enjoying a Lake Michigan sunset. :)

[M-cubed]

Ahhh...where to begin... Someone better do that study over!...the harvests shot up in the 70-80's as a result of the herbicide Velpar a chemical thats seems not to dissipate and eventually leaches into the groundwater.... Can you say OCEANSPRAY, Canadian subsidized competition, (same with potatoes, lumber, lobsters Christmas trees etc.) a little greed and corruption, the Indians Land Claims....lots of reasons behind the scenes...

[joesnuffy]

theres no glut send them here....they are my favorite...
Even more than hu ckle ber ry pie nyah hay hay...Boo Boo.... oh look Mr Raaanger sir...over there isnt that an illegal campfire girl...

[ricpic]

They're a little pricey. But it's a pity that blueberries aren't more popular. Aside from the taste, they're loaded with anti-oxidents.

[MadIvan]

Why isn't there a "Blueberry Jam for Ethiopia" drive then? I understand they're having another famine - send the excess blueberries in jam form (for easier storage) to there. Same goes for Iraq.

Regards, Ivan

[KeyWest]

In Maine, where the "wild" blueberries are grown, we bring in 60,000 bee colonies to pollinate the berries. There are lots of truly wild stands of the low growing berries. I harvest about 15-20 quarts of berries each year from a large field. Use a blueberry rake, so only takes an hour or so. Hand picking takes forever.

[Young Werther]

As a former, recovering Noo Joisyite, I remember that the State Motto is "Garden State". No the state flower is not, I repeat not the oil refinery!

Much of the ketchup,tomato soup and {gulp} Pace Picante sauce comes from South Joisey!

Where da ya tink Tony gets his marinara?

[Trust but Verify]

We're in Wisconsin, cranberry capital of the country. Maybe we can work out some kind of a trade? I don't like cranberries at all!

[TC Rider]

I bet they could sell them to Senate visitors to bounce off of Hillary's! head.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I have BBs and sliced bananas on my chereeos. Feel great all day, eh ?

[rainingred]

I have 4 blueberry plants. They like acid soil. I use sawdust as a mulch and rhododendron fertilizer. However, I rarely get to taste the fruits of my labor, The local deer usually manage to eat most of the berries when they prune my bushes.

[JimVT]

I thought this might be of interest to Freepers:

The North American blueberry is related to the European bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus). Bilberries have a very high anthocyanin content because the pigment is in both the skin and the flesh. In the North American blueberry, the pigment is only found in the skin. For that reason, small berries have proportionally more anthocyanin because the proportion of skin to flesh is higher than in large berries. Because wild (lowbush) berries are generally smaller than cultivated (highbush) berries, the anthocyanin content of the lowbush berries is generally higher.

Bilberries have been used in folk medicine in Europe for centuries and extracts of bilberry (sometimes mixed with blueberry extract) are sold in health food stores in Europe and North America. Scientists are now actively investigating the health benefits of the anthocyanin pigment in bilberries and blueberries. Promising research areas for the use of extracts from these plants are in opthamological applications, diabetes and inflammatory joint disease.

[najida]

I live in the middle of Georgia pines and the soil is extremely acid. I am looking out the windows at 50, head high plants that have produced heavily for the last 20 years or so.

And my favorite recipe is equal parts whipped cream and marshmallow cream....with double the blueberries and chopped pecans to taste. We always had it on the 4th of July garnished with strawberries.

[Carpet Kitten]

I have a deer problem where I live, along with the lyme disease that they carry. If they attract deer, maybe I should kill the bushes?