New Jersey produces $20 million worth of cranberries each year. Drought threatens our ruby ​​red harvest.

Most of the time, cranberry picking in New Jersey is a carnival of color. Ruby red berries bubble on the surface of the azure blue swamps framed by fall foliage located within the Pine Barrens.

Farmers enter swamps where water levels are high and delicately rake the berries across the surface of the water before they are collected onto conveyor belts for processing.

But this year there is not enough water. Months without significant precipitation In the Garden State, reservoirs remain high and dry as underground wells are pumped out of their last drops.

Growing any crop in drought conditions is difficult, but Ruby Pines are especially dependent on water at every stage of the farming process.

Prolonged drought in parts of New Jersey has made harvesting cranberries slow, expensive and nearly impossible for many farmers as reservoirs dry up, groundwater levels drop and a general lack of moisture delays supplies and threatens vineyards.

“This season has been exceptionally tough,” Bill Haynes of Pine Island Cranberry in Chatsworth said by phone last week. “This is the driest October I can remember.”

Haynes said the current drought is the worst he has experienced since he began working on cranberry farms in 1976.

“We were able to cope. We actually have a good harvest, but water is precious,” Haynes added. “We haven’t had significant rainfall since early July.”

Last Friday national drought report has determined that the Pinelands areas of Burlington, Atlantic and Ocean counties, where many of the state’s cranberry farms are located, are in severe drought conditions.

Dry conditions have slowed the cranberry harvest and threaten to delay deliveries to Ocean Spray and other buyers of one of New Jersey’s largest crops.

Water is the most important component of the cranberry harvestaccording to the New Jersey farm office. Cranberries grow on vines, and each fall, when the crop is ready to be harvested, the fields are flooded to allow the berries to float to the surface, where they are shaken from the vines, according to Pinelands Conservation Alliance.

Many farmers maintain reservoirs to help flood cranberry bogs during harvest season, but reservoir levels rely on rainfall to help maintain water levels, Pete Furey, executive director of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, said in a phone call last week.

Steve Lee of Lee Brothers Farms in Chatsworth, a smaller-to-midsize producer in the Pinelands, said Monday he had a tank that was essentially empty and relied on a well that the farm used almost exclusively to fill swamps for harvest. .

“The well is usually six to eight feet underground,” Lee said. “I checked it late last week and it was about 20 feet up.”

The Garden State is the second largest cranberry producer in the country after Massachusetts and produces about 580,000 barrels in 2023, generating about $20 million in revenue.according to the US Department of Agriculture.

“The lack of rain has not helped cranberry farmers as they rely on well water to meet crop needs, making the harvest process longer than usual,” a state Department of Agriculture spokesman said last week. “Ocean Spray has received requests for additional time and we expect those requests to be honored.”

Ocean spray is farmers cooperative about 700 family farms throughout the country. Ocean Spray did not respond to a request for comment about the problems facing the New Jersey crop.

Furey, executive director of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, said that despite the harsh harvest conditions, he doesn’t expect buyers to penalize New Jersey’s crop.

Pine Island Cranberry’s Haynes said harvest delivery times are always flexible and he has been in contact with the Ocean Spray receiving station almost daily. He doesn’t expect any crops to be rejected, he said.

Drought has reached alarming levels in New Jersey in recent weeks as the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued advisories for residents to voluntarily begin conserving water.

On October 17, the DEP issued a statewide drought watch. based on warmer than average temperatures and persistent drought, and asked residents to voluntarily conserve water. If conditions do not improve, the agency warned that a drought or emergency warning could be issued and mandatory restrictions on water use could be required.

“Over the past three months, New Jersey has experienced significantly below-average precipitation, which has contributed to lower river flows, reservoirs and groundwater levels,” the DEP said in a statement.

With dry weather forecast to continue, New Jersey is expected to set new drought records.

“After the third-driest September since records began in 1895, New Jersey saw virtually no precipitation in the first half of October,” state climatologist David Robinson said last week. “With little rain expected in the second half of the year, there is a possibility that October will not only be the driest on record, but possibly the driest of any month.”

To explain the lack of rain, Haynes said he had to recycle reservoirs from flooded marshes and also use water from wells to sufficiently flood the marshes.

“In addition to not having enough water to fill the swamps, we have been using sprinklers at night this past week to keep the berries from freezing,” Lee added.

Lee and Haynes are fortunate to have wells to draw water from. Lee said he knows some independent farmers who don’t have wells are really trying to find solutions for the 2024 harvest.

Both Lee and Haynes said they expect to harvest the entire crop, but the process has proven slow and costly.

And how New Jersey’s drought will affect the cost of cranberry treats at holiday dinners is unknown.

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Matthew Enuko can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow Matt on X.