Yarborough speaks with Ellsworth American about ‘new normal’ blueberry harvest
David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist with the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension, spoke with The Ellsworth American about this year’s blueberry harvest. A 100-million-pound Maine wild blueberry harvest is now the new normal, according to the article. Despite excessive heat and less than perfect rainfall, Maine’s $250 million wild blueberry industry is expecting to harvest about 100 million pounds of the native fruit again this season, the article states. “Most of our growers are optimistic that we will have over 100 million pounds, unless we have a heat wave or no rain at all,” Yarborough said. The big yields prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to announce in April that it would buy $13 million in surplus berries this year, according to the report.