Rise and shine: Cranberry harvest gets an early start

The cranberry harvest is underway and A.D. Makepeace, one of the world’s largest cranberry growers, is expecting a good harvest, according to Makepeace’s Vice President of Marketing and Communication Linda Burke.

“It’s looking good, in large part because of the cooler weather that we’ve been having,” Burke said.

Makepeace is based Wareham and has been cultivating cranberry bogs in Wareham, Carver and Plymouth for over a century and this year’s berries already have a good color on them due to the cooler nights, according to Burke.

“Normally you’d see a pattern of lighter colored berries — almost yellowish white — that would be woven through the bogs but you don’t see any of that here,” she said. “That color is where they don’t get any sun because they’re under the canopy of the vine and they don’t get enough cool nights.”

Wareham and much of the surrounding area was recently issued a drought warning by the state. Burke said the bogs were built so that water from one could be drained and moved directly into the next to not only protect from drought, but also conserve water.

“We have a system that protects us from drought but it would be nice to have a little bit of rain,” she said.

Burke added due to the early start, the harvest could be completed a few weeks earlier than the usual end date of early November.

The harvest began about a week ago and while Burke said it is still too early to predict how many pounds of cranberries will be collected, many Makepeace employees have a bet to see who will have the closest guess to the final total.

“Everyone puts in their wager and if they come the closest they win a $250 gift card,” she said.

In order to harvest the berries, Burke said there is a two-stage flooding process they use across their 1,600 acre bog network.

“There’s a machine that goes over the berries and knocks them off the vines and then the bogs are flooded to about six inches,” she said. “Then the berries rise to level and the bogs are flooded again so the process is much easier.”

Once flooded the second time to between 2.5 and 3 feet, the workers use a plastic boom to corral the berries and feed them into a conveyor belt, which then separates the berries from any debris that might get collected.

Burke added much of their labor during the harvest is seasonal workers who return year after year.

“We go through a company that provides us with seasonal workers and they’re not all migrants, some follow the blueberry harvest and then come down here,” she said. “A lot of the guys that people see on our bogs have been doing this for years.”

Once harvested, the berries are shipped off to the Ocean Spray receiving center in Carver where they are processed and stored.