Florida blueberries hit prime market window
With Florida’s blueberry harvest in full swing, state officials estimate acreage at 5,200 and production near 20 million pounds.
Blueberries grow throughout the state of Florida, primarily from Hendry County in the south to Alachua and Putnam counties in the north, Doug Phillips, University of Florida’s blueberry extension coordinator, said in a news release. “There are some rabbit eye blueberries grown in the Florida Panhandle, mostly on smaller farms with U-pick operations,” he said. “Most blueberries grow in central Florida, although there is significant acreage in both the north-central and south-central regions.”
Florida has the first U.S.-produced blueberries to reach the domestic market in early spring, according to the release. Harvest generally begins in March in the south-central and central regions and continues through early May, when market prices decline, the release said. Phillips said the state’s market window is when prices are typically the highest, which is an advantage for Florida growers. The state ranks eighth in the U.S. in terms of utilized blueberry production, according to the release.
“We are not very large, but we do produce the first fresh fruit of the country and that makes us very relevant,” Phillips said.
In other blueberry news in the Sunshine State, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has released a Spanish-language version of the UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide app. The app is available on iOS or Android, according to the release.
“Many Florida growers, farm managers and field personnel speak Spanish as their first language, and in some cases, the communication between producers and managers or labor can be difficult,” Phillips said in the release. “Our objective in developing a Spanish-language version is to make the resources in the Blueberry Growers Guide app even more useful for all people involved in the process. Also, the ability to quickly see a translation of an item will allow more productive discussions between users with different primary languages.”
