Edit: an older source from 1999 claimed the machines used at that time had 14-16% loss. Seems weird that yield went down with newer technology, but maybe speed increased so it's overall better?
What's your uncle's name, so I can verify I've never picked them with him?
Ah, nevermind. I've only picked blueberries (and raspberries, when I found a bush while walking them to Pokeman Go sites) with my pre-adolescent nephews, so I'm the only uncle I've ever picked with.
It’s kind of like lawns. Originally they were super bourgeois because they required employees or slaves to hand cut them with scythes. Now anyone can pick up a motorized lawn mower for $50 used
Those perfectly manicured lawns that were a feature around the palatial estates found in England, France et al. were all done by hand? I always wondered how they did that between, say, 1300-1900 without motorized tools, but a damn scythe?! That sounds enormously labor intensive and would require a great deal of skill on the part of the laborers to achieve a uniform length
Juan Valdez does not approve of that message. Discriminantly picks his coffee beans by hand to bring you the best coffee. God rest his soul we lots him early 2019.
Obviously the newer machines have an advantage to them. But it seemed counter intuitive at first glance and fairly interesting to me, so I thought I'd add it.
I'm pretty sure it's just the variety. They may be closer to their wild ancestors and the more widely farmed ones. I know from personal experience that the store bought wild ones are quite similar to actual wild.
I don’t think these are wild. Wild plants won’t grow in a huge monoculture field like this. I could’ve been planted and then neglected but wild blueberries would be surrounded by trees and grasses etc.
I live in blueberry country, and blueberries do indeed grow in mostly monocultures like this where the soil is a particular type that's inhospitable to other plants
Likely some of the berries burst when the machine tries to pick them. The loss ratio going up in the autumn makes sense too, because the berries get softer the older they are.
And thanks to the speed of the machine and its effectiveness its most likely doing 50% extra if not even more cause it can get almost all of the berries so the loss is quite small in the end
Granted not all follow this patch... but the amount of pesticides that are probably on those blueberries is insane :/
I have natural blueberry patches in my fields (and honestly anywhere around that there is unkempt, open land) and there’s a good bit of insect damage on many fruits even though it’s surrounded by natural defense habitat ie, flowers, woods, open spacing etc... I know what some of the local blueberry farmers use to keep their massive, hybrid blueberries insect free, I would take the natural bluebs with the odd bug filled berry any day over those monocultured fruit farms.
Anyway, that’s my blueberry rant. Eat organic, save animals
Losses aren’t really an issue with farming like this. They help promote and stimulate healthy plant and soil life as well as the local ecosystem. Every time some berries drop, some critters in the soil get to eat.
Sources, friends with an organic farm manager and several wine makers with a similar outlook.
Technically less efficient, composting creates an ideal microclimate to break things down. You'd spend much more time breaking down as a blueberry who fell off the bush straight onto the ground below than you would as a blueberry in a composter.
But of course, I guess you could say it's more efficient to leave the berries there and let nature do her thing than it would be to manually recover the berries and relocate them to the composter, then place the resulting compost back onto the soil.
But the source from 1999 describes a very similar machine with a similar method of collecting the fruit. Hand picking is a completely different method.
It's obvious that the newer machines are better, but it did seem kinda strange and counter intuitive so I wanted to add it.
Data from late 20th century is often reliable, not necessarily applicable but often reliable. I think that some of the comments from other people, like the new machines requiring less labour or more selective picking towards the ripe fruits and some other, is most likely the reason for this.
871
u/TheCheeser9 Dec 31 '20 edited Dec 31 '20
The results revealed that fruit losses of 17%, 21% and 23% were observed in early, middle and late season harvesting, respectively.
Found this on https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/72041
Edit: an older source from 1999 claimed the machines used at that time had 14-16% loss. Seems weird that yield went down with newer technology, but maybe speed increased so it's overall better?