The volume of Maine’s wild blueberry crop has increased dramatically in the last several decades, but this season’s harvest looks to have been slightly behind recent trends.
The 2015 harvest is likely less than 90 million pounds, and possibly as low as 85 million, University of Maine horticulture professor David Yarborough said. Recent years have yielded about 90 million pounds per year, and the 2014 total was 104 million, which was the second-highest total on record.
Several factors contributed to this summer’s middling year, including cold spring weather that wasn’t optimal for bees to pollinate the blueberries, Yarborough said. The berries also suffered from die-off during the winter months and a dry summer, he said.
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