DEBLOIS, Maine — By 7:30 on a surprisingly chilly August morning, workers on the rocky blueberry barrens were two hours into their back-breaking rhythm, raking tiny berries from low bushes.
Over and over, they filled hand-held scoops and gently poured the succulent wild fruit into brightly colored tubs stacked high on the expansive fields— the first of more than 80 million pounds of berries expected to be harvested and frozen in the next few weeks and shipped the world over to fill muffins, pancakes, pies, and breakfast bowls.
This year’s crop is threatened, however, by a red-eyed, weak-flying fruit fly that has soft-fruit farmers across the United States scrambling to protect not just blueberries, but raspberries, blackberries, and late-season strawberries. The spotted wing drosophila, an Asian fly found in California in 2008, first showed up in New England in 2011. In 2012, an estimated 2 million pounds of wild Maine blueberries alone, worth close to $1.4 million, were lost, according to eFly, a consortium of researchers and farmers studying the pest.
Now growers here are bracing for the invasive fly’s return this month and worrying that the infestation could intensify and spread.
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