Is New Jersey in a drought and will dry weather hurt cranberry farms?

On November 28, 2024By Littum

John Darlington’s family grew cranberries in South Jersey even before US President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. How’s that for a Thanksgiving tradition?

“We weren’t the earliest, but we were pretty close,” said Darlington, a fifth-generation Pemberton Township farmer.

Fortunately for Darlington, his fellow farmers and consumers everywhere, the recent stretch of dry weather hasn’t affected cranberry production or prices, at least according to Kate Leonard, a spokeswoman for the grower-owned Ocean Spray cooperative.

Darlington’s relatives began growing cranberries in 1857 when an ancestor fenced bogs that were once used to extract iron from the Pinelands soil. The bogs were already filled with naturally growing cranberries, which eventually became a staple crop in the area.

This year, the near-drought conditions only delayed the crop’s colorful harvest season, which typically runs from mid-September to mid-October. Farmers needed about 10 extra days to pump enough well water to flood their marshes, an essential part of the harvest process, a state Department of Agriculture spokesman said.

Darlington said he had to tap water supplies about 2 miles from his 300-acre property.

“It cost us a lot of extra hours to pump water,” Darlington added. “I have to go a long way to get water.”

New Jersey ranked third last year among the nation’s cranberry-growing states, harvesting nearly 580,000 barrels of berries grown on 2,900 acres of wetlands.

That followed first place Wisconsin and Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Garden State’s crop had a production value of about $20 million, ranking fifth behind blueberries, peppers, tomatoes and sweet corn.

The tart berries have deep roots in the agricultural history of this area.

“Burlington County is the second largest cranberry-producing county in the United States,” according to the county’s website.

The cranberry farm founded by Darlington’s family was the state’s largest in the early 1900s when it supported a company town now preserved as Whitesbog Village in Browns Mills.

The village today includes restored cottages, farm buildings, a general store and gardens, according to its website. It is surrounded by 3,000 acres of “cranberry bogs, blueberry fields, reservoirs, sugar sand roads and Pine Barrens forests.”

Another family member, Elizabeth Coleman White, helped grow highbush blueberries at White’s book, creating an even larger crop for the Garden State.

White was recently named to New Jersey’s Hall of Fame, and also wrote a book on cranberry growing that became a standard guide for the industry, the website said.

It also noted a more recent development in cranberry farming: tours for people who want to see the harvest.

The picturesque process begins when the marshes are flooded and the crimson berries – still attached to bushes or vines – float to the surface. A tractor then pulls a harrow through the churned water and separates the berries from their plants.

Workers use booms to confine the berries in bright red pools so they can be removed and processed.

When it is over, the water is pumped back into a reservoir. It will later be spread over the bogs to protect the vines from the cold of winter, Darlington said.

And the berries? They might show up at your Thanksgiving dinner.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter at the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: [email protected].