Cranberry Harvest

    It is bewildering to think of all the manufacturing that existed here in South Jersey when I was young and now it's gone.  I can't imagine how our economy works at all when we produce so little and there are so many service jobs.  Somebody has to produce and I am so happy to say that it is the farmers. They still exist here---they still PRODUCE!  I had the opportunity to visit a cranberry farm. The farm had an impressive new farm building and a long row of tractors and other harvesting machines.  This is one business that isn't going to China for awhile.  This summer cranberry farmers out in the Chatsworth, NJ had to deal with excessive heat and too much rain at times causing the fruit to rot. Some bogs were hit hard and others not so much.  The farms that I visited are harvested underwater.  There has been and there continues to be an evolution of machines that keep improving the efficiency of harvesting the beautiful berries.  These berries will be used for juice products and not the fresh produce market.  I was able to see one of the newly developed harvesters. The cranberries grow in low bogs and can be flooded with water for varying reasons.  This flooding can protect the plants from excessive heat or frost in the spring or fall. When you drive through cranberry farming areas, you will see little houses next to the fields.  They house the pumps that regulate the water in the bogs.

Harvested cranberries in the flooded bog float to the top.

Berries with a twig from the low growing bush

These are the common type of harvesters used in a small team of workers.

This is another type of harvester.  A concern for the farmer is that some machines have wheels that somewhat damage the bed of cranberries.  So a harvester that floats like this one may be an improvement over the wheeled variety.  This one is drawn back and forth by a cable attached to a tractor.

After the harvesters get the berries off the plants, the floating berries are drawn into a conveyor that will bring them up and then send them to a shute that will deposit them in the trucks for hauling.  They still have bits of stems, leaves and dirt so they must go on to the main building at the farm where they will be processed for cleaning purposes.   

This is one of the pump houses with cedar siding.

This is the pool where the cranberries are dumped for the cleaning of the berries. This is the last step at the farm and then they are hauled away to be processed into juice and other products but these berries will not be for the fresh produce market.  I ate a few of the raw berries and they were quite enjoyable---no added sugar!