Atlas Obscura quotes Yarborough in report on blueberry glut
David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist with the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension and a professor of horticulture in the School of Food and Agriculture, was quoted in the Atlas Obscura article, “Is there such a thing as too many blueberries?” Blueberries grow naturally in Maine’s acidic soil, and for decades, growers have been working to better understand them in order to produce more fruit, according to the article. In the past 30 years, they’ve succeeded so much so that yields have almost doubled since the 1980s, the article states. But as the supply of wild blueberries has increased, so has the production of cultivated berries throughout the country and around the world. And despite the industry’s best efforts to market them, there are more blueberries than people are ready to eat. Wild blueberry bushes thrive in Maine and Canada along glaciated plains that are inhospitable to many plants, and do well in disturbed places, Atlas Obscura reported. “If you get a blow down in the forest, they respond rapidly and produce fruit so that birds and bears eat and distribute it,” Yarborough said. “We’re taking advantage of that adaptive strategy to produce a wild crop in a commercial manner.”