The fall harvest of ripe berries in the cranberry fields is a breathtaking event, thanks to the color impact offered by the berries surfacing at the water’s edge. Cranberry harvesting occurs once a year, beginning in mid-September and continuing until early November. There are two methods of collection: dry collection and water collection.
Dry collection
Dry harvesting is done by growers, who walk through the plantations, pushing carts equipped with mechanisms, which convey the berries detached from the bushes into crates. The fresh fruits are then transported to the farms where berry sorting takes place based on color and bounce ability. Dry or rotten berries and pier berries are discarded. This type of harvesting is mainly used for the fresh fruit market and for making culinary recipes.
Water collection
Water harvesting is another method by which bogs are flooded with about half a meter of water. “Whiskers,” special machines traverse the flooded fields creating eddies of water that help the fruit separate from the plant. At this point, the berries are easily gathered and harvested with suction pumps that perform an initial washing of the fruit. The cranberries, then, are transported to the farms for cleaning and subsequent stages of fresh product preparation. Blueberries harvested from flooded fields are used to make juice or sauces. In terms of volume, water harvesting yields more than dry harvesting, but tends to reduce the quality and shelf life of fruit in storage. Berries can be damaged when they are placed in water and crushed during mechanical harvesting. Usually the water-harvested berries are immediately frozen or dried and packed in packages of various sizes.
Source: Cranberry – A fruit that never ceases to amaze by Mediserve
