Location, location, location. It was the difference between a bountiful blueberry crop and one that fell short of expectations for East Texas farmers this season, according to the Longview News-Journal.
Brenda Martin, whose family owns Panola Orchard Gardens in DeBerry, said they had a good season.
“Everything really just worked in our favor,” she said. “We had no hail damage. We had a lot of hail storms north, south, east and west of us, but we managed to dodge all the bad hailstorms that we got during the spring.”
Blueberry growers across the East Texas area are wrapping up harvest, and some have already finished.
For Robby Henderson, owner of Henderson Blueberry Farm in Avinger, the harvest ended in June. There just weren’t many berries to pick.
“It was a really down year for us,” he said. “We probably didn’t get to pick a third of what we did last year.”
He attributed the poor harvest to weather and pruning, according to the Longview News-Journal.
“I think a lot of it had to do with weather we had in the spring with the rain, and I think we might even have had a hailstorm at my farm,” he said. “There was a lot of damage to the blooms while the blooms were still blooming.”
Henderson’s blueberry bushes that were growing near a line of trees were protected from the spring storms. The bushes out in the fields, however, produced less fruit, likely because of the storm damage.
But growers, regardless of a good or bad crop, are still optimistic about the next year’s growing season.
“We’re hopeful for next year,” Henderson said. “I’m doing a lot more vegetative control to keep out some of the invasive species that are coming in and trying to get where the berries don’t have much competition for water and nutrients and stuff.”