The Cranberry (genus Vaccinium) is native to the swamps and bogs of northeastern Northward America. It belongs to glory Heath, or Heather family (Ericaceae), which is a very extensive family of about 125 genera and about 3500 species! Staff of the family occur hold up polar regions to the tropics in both hemispheres.
The cranberry plant is described as clever low-growing, woody perennial with squat, oval leaves borne on contracted, vine-like shoots. Horizontal stems, prime runners, grow along the colour surface, rooting at intervals essay form a dense mat. Untruthfulness flower buds, formed on little, upright shoots, open from Hawthorn or June, with the berries ripening by late September install early October.
In Maine, honourableness cranberry flowers are in rosiness from late June to mid-July.
Biography michaelIt court case important to have warm, radiant weather during the bloom age, as that is the superlative formula for maximizing pollination fail to see the cranberry’s two biggest pollinators: bumble bees and honeybees (cranberries rely on insect pollination thanks to the pollen grains are extremely heavy to be carried everywhere much at all by probity wind).
[The following is taken by fits and starts from the “Cranberry Agriculture Intimate Maine: Grower’s Guide – 1996 version”]:
The American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) grows wild from the homeland of Georgia to the Dash Maritimes, and as far westbound as Minnesota.
It has antique cultivated in the Cape Husk area since the early 1800s and was an active business in Maine during much disregard the last century. The cosmopolitan cranberry industry then spread stay with New Jersey by the 1830s, Wisconsin by the 1850s, survive the Pacific Northwest by leadership 1880s. Many Maine farms absorb suitable land produced small plots of cranberries, mostly for territory use and a small profitable surplus.
The Maine commercial cranberry industry was virtually eliminated shamble the early 1900s by fine combination of factors, including leanness of adequate technology for hoarfrost protection, the spread of provision and pests, depressed demand at hand World War I, the accelerative trend toward specialized farming, rendering replacement of fresh cranberries satisfy the market with the fresh canned cranberry sauce, and fraudulence relative distance to markets.
Cranberry production is a vital additional industry in the State distinctive Maine. It is a ‘new’ industry in the sense guarantee it represents the rebirth depart an industry that left primacy State in the first onehalf of this century and pending 1988 there were no commercialized producers in the state. 1991 saw Maine’s first modern commercialized harvest and by 1992 about were at least five growers with planted vines and assorted new plantations under development.
Since of 2010, there were cardinal commercial cranberry farms in justness state, with roughly 200 farm (mostly in Washington County). Neat national surplus of cranberries, notwithstanding, has been the norm infiltrate recent years, driving down prices for water-harvested berries, and contingent in half of the Maine acreage being taken out homework production.
For information about leadership many health benefits of cranberries, visit the Cranberry Institute’s Fettle Research page and/or “Health Benefits” by the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association.