One, two, three, four.
Wild blueberries are the second largest crop in Maine,
they have inhabited the land naturally, so nobody has planted these plants
and because they haven't been bred, there is a lot of diversity across fields.
They're an unique agricultural system and they're genetically different
from each other.
So we have to manage wild blueberry in a different way than cultivated crops.
And at the same time, climate change is the elephant in the room.
What are we going to do? Temperatures rising way too fast.
So we are trying to find out how we can solve this problem
for the growers.
My name is Rafa Tasnim.
Our lab, Dr. Zhang's lab, is looking into a wild
blueberry plant physiology and climate change effects.
And my name is Dr.
Lily Calderwood and I work with farmers and researchers
to understand wild blueberry production.
The crop has been produced for thousands of years by the native
people, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and they still do today.
So wild blueberries are currently grown all the way from Brunswick, up
the coast, out to Machias, and those acres
are managed by 485 growers.
They rely on that income and they are already adapting to the weather changes.
The farmers are concerned about climate change
and it is currently impacting growers and growers acknowledge it.
We are at the mercy of the weather.
In 2019, there was a frost event that reduced the crop by 50%.
Then we also have the spotted wing Drosophila that plays its eggs
in wild blueberries, but it is arriving earlier and earlier.
And then you have fields that alternate one year on, one year off
and the fields that are not supposed to produce fruit this year,
some of them are starting to bloom.
These plants will not produce for next year because they've
spent the energy doing it now.
So that's another likely climate related challenge.
But it's been harder.
And when we analyzed 40 years of climate patterns
only on the Downeast region, but temperature increasing
rate is significantly higher than all over Maine.
And it's especially a problem because in 2020 we had a very dry year
and we lost about 47% of the crop.
So if the temperatures is high and there is not enough
moisture in the soil, that's when they get stressed.
So that's the tipping point.
Soil moisture is very important for them because they have coarse grain soil,
so they have this big pores in the soil, so the water leaches out pretty fast.
This crop evolved to have a little bit of moisture every morning.
So let's say we irrigate them a lot.
They are going to leach out more fertilizers, a lot of water,
and it will add groundwater, water pollution, and we don't want that.
So we are trying to find out
alternative ways to manage them, even if the climate is changing.
So the Blueberry Hill Farm Research Lab is owned by University of Maine.
We are doing research on the wild blueberry fields here.
So those are our open top chambers and inside these chambers, we have
a heating system that is increasing the temperature inside those chambers.
So if you see the flags, those are a different type of genotypes.
They are genetically different from each other.
So our objective is to find out how different
genotypes is reacting to this high temperature.
Inside these chambers, we are also testing mulch and biochar.
compost mixed. Biochar's particle surface has this
excellent chemistry that will absorb water and hold it for longer time.
But we don't have the results yet.
We will take the soil samples, we will test it and that's how
we will know. So that's in the earlier stages.
But we have seen if we put on a layer of softwood mulch,
the mulch holds moisture
and the crop has more moisture available to it for a longer period of time.
So we're looking at how to apply mulch across full fields.
Maine has huge amounts of wood waste, so waste can be our treasures.
So up to date and accurate, non-biased information
is absolutely critical for the success of growers in Maine.
So we do on farm field events where we have growers come into a field
and research plots out for them to see comparisons of this versus that.
We also have a plant pathologist and an entomologist all working on wild
blueberry. And as a team, we can address all these different issues that come up.
They need our help.
So it's really quite rewarding to bring something back to them that's useful.
If we completely fail, the crop could migrate north entirely
and we wouldn't have any in the current growing region.
But I think it's really important that we preserve it
for cultural and environmental and economic reasons in the state.
I'm optimistic in the sense that for hundreds of years they have been
facing all sorts of changes, but they're still there.
But at the same time, we have to change the systems a little bit here and there.
You just need a little push or a little help.
I think wild blueberries are more delicious,
more tasty than the highbush cultivated blueberries.
They are small, but they're mighy!
Oh, has research ruined them?
Well, you know what?
I do get a little sick of them by like mid-August.
I think I'm done, but there's nothing like going for a hike
and still being able to pick them. It's so nice.