—by Matt Milkovich
A sampling of blueberries ready for sensory evaluation as a part of a Michigan State College mission to see if delaying harvest for sure varieties improves their taste. (Courtesy Emily Mayhew/Michigan State College)
Michigan blueberry growers are changing their older varieties with the newer, sweeter varieties shoppers want, however the course of is sluggish.
Michigan State College assistant professor and berry crops physiologist Josh Vander Weide mentioned it should in all probability take a decade or two for Michigan growers to totally transition their fresh-market plantings to newer cultivars. New plantings are extra intensive and costly than they was once, and an more and more aggressive world market for blueberries limits earnings.
Within the meantime, shoppers need sweeter berries, and retail chains have cooled on a few of Michigan’s conventional varieties, which had been bred extra for firmness, yield and illness resistance moderately than taste and fruit high quality.
So, how can the state’s growers sustain?
“We’d like methods in place that may enhance the standard and taste of (present) fresh-market blueberries whereas new plantings with higher cultivars are being established,” Vander Weide mentioned. “Nothing can actually change a cultivar with good-tasting fruit, however there are issues we will do to assist.”
Vander Weide and MSU meals science and diet assistant professor Emily Mayhew are learning two strategies to enhance Michigan blueberries: delaying harvest and utilizing plant development regulators. Vander Weide realized each strategies working with wine grapes in British Columbia.
Two years of trials have proven that making use of plant development regulators containing jasmonate hormones shortly earlier than harvest can tremendously improve the focus of aroma compounds in blueberries, giving them a stronger taste. The PGR mission is funded by a Michigan Division of Agriculture and Rural Growth Specialty Crop Block Grant. Jasmonic acids, generally referred to as JA, are phytohormones recognized to play a task in crops’ fruit improvement and stress responses.
It could be a easy sufficient resolution: Add an additional product to the spray tank simply earlier than harvest to spice up blueberry taste. Nonetheless, the PGRs they trialed aren’t registered to be used on blueberries, and there’s no assure they are going to be, Vander Weide mentioned.
Delaying harvest to spice up taste has extra quick potential. For this mission, he selected to work with frequent Michigan varieties Duke and Draper, in addition to Calypso, a more moderen selection with huge, comfortable berries.
The primary 12 months’s knowledge present that delaying the primary harvest by per week can lower a berry’s acidity degree, giving it a sweeter taste. They’ll collect one other 12 months of knowledge earlier than growing grower suggestions. The mission is funded by MSU’s Challenge GREEEN initiative.
Michigan growers have made a behavior of selecting berries as quickly as they flip blue, however for some varieties it could be higher to attend longer, Vander Weide mentioned.
“Loads of people assume that ripening stops when fruit flip blue, however some issues happen after turning blue to enhance taste,” he mentioned.
However does ready for better sweetness come on the expense of firmness or shelf life? This 12 months, Vander Weide plans to trial the consequences of delayed harvest on shelf life. Calypso, with its bigger and softer berries, confirmed a comparatively giant lower in firmness within the trials; for Duke and Draper, the decreases had been marginal.
“If you happen to’re solely sacrificing 5 p.c of firmness for better-tasting fruit, I believe that’s an excellent tradeoff,” he mentioned.
Delayed harvest may also cut back the variety of picks, which might save on labor prices, he mentioned.
Vander Weide performed delayed-harvest trials at Brookside Farms in Southwest Michigan, the place the Fritz household grows 425 acres of blueberries. Their recent, wholesale blueberries are harvested primarily by hand. Varieties embrace Duke and Draper, in addition to a trial plot of Calypso, mentioned grower George Fritz.
The massive retail chains need giant, flavorful fresh-market berries, and lots of conventional varieties don’t meet that customary, Fritz mentioned. The prospect of ready just a few days to extend fruit high quality earlier than selecting sounds promising to him.
“Something to enhance fruit high quality at all times catches my ear,” he mentioned.
Fritz used to delay harvest to realize higher advertising and marketing home windows for sure varieties, particularly Elliott, which boosted late-season gross sales for years. However elevated competitors has rendered the late-season window much less worthwhile. As of late, it truly pays extra to select earlier, he mentioned.
So, delaying harvest might push his berries right into a much less worthwhile market window, but it surely additionally might result in the higher taste and fruit high quality that customers demand. Harvest timing is a juggling act, however as a fruit grower, Fritz is used to that. •
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