University of Vermont
Department of Plant and Soil Science
Fall News Article
CRANBERRIES FOR THANKSGIVING
Dr. Leonard Perry, Horticulture Professor Emeritus
University of Vermont
Turkey without cranberry sauce? For most Americans that's as
unthinkable as Thanksgiving without turkey! In fact, even the
Pilgrims enjoyed this versatile perennial fruit with their first
Thanksgiving meal.
The cranberry was a staple in the diet of Native Americans who
called it the "bitter berry." They introduced this food to the early
settlers and taught them how to make "pemmican" by pounding the
cranberries together with dried meat and fat. The settlers also made
meat sauces with cranberries, and mixed them with maple sap to make
a sweet breakfast syrup.
The cranberry is a native American wetland plant that is grown in
open bogs and marshes from Newfoundland to western Ontario and as
far south as Virginia and Arkansas. Although stems (actually they
are vines) are rather sensitive to cold, they’ll withstand such
submersion well. The vine-like plant grows from six inches to two
feet long and has small, evergreen leaves and pinkish flowers. The
berries are harvested in October, just in time for Thanksgiving.
Massachusetts is the leading producer (with about half of the total
U.S. crop), followed by Wisconsin and New Jersey. In Canada, there
is limited production in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and British
Columbia. Production of cranberries requires a large amount of
water--the equivalent of about 200 inches of rainfall a year for
irrigation, frost protection, harvest, pest control, and winter
protection. Soil pH needs to be between 4.0 and 5.0 because
cranberries require low pH for adequate nutrient intake. In
Massachusetts, the Cape Cod area is especially suited for commercial
cranberry production.
About 90 percent of the cranberries are wet harvested. Bogs are
flooded just prior to harvest, then a floating harvester moves
through the bog to separate the berries from the vine. The hollow
fruit rises to the surface where it is collected and corralled in a
section of the bog. The fruit is moved from the bog to the waiting
trucks by elevator, then taken away for processing. Fruit that is
harvested by this method is processed into juice, sauce, and other
cranberry products. The rest of the crop is dry harvested with a
picking machine, which resembles a large lawn mower. Although this
method is less efficient, growers receive a higher price for dry
harvested fruit. These cranberries usually are packaged and sold as
fresh whole berries in grocery stores.
Berries can be stored in their original container in the
refrigerator for up to a week, or washed and frozen in a freezer
container for later use. They do not need to be thawed before using
them in a recipe. In addition to the traditional jelly or sauce,
cranberries can be used for pies, muffins, quick breads, puddings,
and sherbets. Cranberry juice, both regular and sugar-free, has
become a popular drink in recent years, especially in combination
with other juices.
If you want to try growing some at home, you’ll need a cool moist
soil with plenty of organic matter such as peat moss. One approach
would be to make a “heath bed” for cranberries and other relatives
of the heath family—lingonberries, lowbush blueberries, even
rhododendrons. Mix roughly equal parts of peat moss and potting
soil, keep the bed acidic with pelletized sulfur (amounts according
to a soil test or soil test kit you can purchase inexpensively), and
feed lightly with soybean meal. Bogs aren’t really needed for home
growing, just keep plants well-watered.
Grown in full sun, cranberries will make an attractive and low
maintenance evergreen groundcover under a foot high and 2 to 3 feet
wide.
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