The Lost Art of Growing Blueberries with Fire(atlasobscura.com)
atlasobscura.com
The Lost Art of Growing Blueberries with Fire
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-people-burn-blueberry-fields
75 comments
Haven’t read this one, adding to the list, thanks!
Oaks are pretty fire resistant, and support a lot of game — so those wide open spaces were actually oak savanna. Big prairies with one or two oaks per acre. In fact, Oregon — now known for its Douglas Fir — was wide open oak savanna, due to fire management practices of native Americans.
Oaks are pretty fire resistant, and support a lot of game — so those wide open spaces were actually oak savanna. Big prairies with one or two oaks per acre. In fact, Oregon — now known for its Douglas Fir — was wide open oak savanna, due to fire management practices of native Americans.
I guess you can have fire-managed, healthy forests OR permanent human dwelling structures but not both at the same time.
You can have both. See the useful links at the bottom of this page [0], here [1], and here [2]. It requires ingenuity and discipline to maintain a S.A.F.E. zone, but it’s not impossible.
I remember reading but can not find a link about how people experimented with different landscape strategies (I think in Canada?) to see which techniques worked best. The best strategies were able to withstand the worst varieties of fires.
In short, “we” know what works, but applying the knowledge is expensive and works only for individuals. It’s hard for the government to compel people living in wood cabins to get a metal roof and to clear a hundred foot perimeter of forest.
[0]: https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-re...
[1]: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/platform/amp/landscaping/210155...
[2]: https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_journals/2016/rmrs_2016_smith_...
I remember reading but can not find a link about how people experimented with different landscape strategies (I think in Canada?) to see which techniques worked best. The best strategies were able to withstand the worst varieties of fires.
In short, “we” know what works, but applying the knowledge is expensive and works only for individuals. It’s hard for the government to compel people living in wood cabins to get a metal roof and to clear a hundred foot perimeter of forest.
[0]: https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-re...
[1]: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/platform/amp/landscaping/210155...
[2]: https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_journals/2016/rmrs_2016_smith_...
No, you either have both or neither.
Fuel management, through controlled burns, herbicides, and mechanical removal, plus maintaining fire breaks and exclusion zones, is what makes it possible to have permanent structures.
Fuel management, through controlled burns, herbicides, and mechanical removal, plus maintaining fire breaks and exclusion zones, is what makes it possible to have permanent structures.
Decades of fuel build up tends to make fires a bigger threat to structures.
This sounds like recasting the well understood, documented, and widely practised “slash and burn[0]” as some kind of “Native American Earth Wisdom”. What am I missing?
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn
From that wiki page:
> After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases
> due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion,
> causing the farmers to abandon the field and move over to a new area.
It sounds like the Native Americans weren't farming the land to exhaustion then moving on and repeating the process elsewhere. They were just burning an area and letting it return "naturally" (yes I know that sounds weird). I imagine that it was also not performed on quite the same scale as it is in recent times in, say, the Amazon.
> After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases
> due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion,
> causing the farmers to abandon the field and move over to a new area.
It sounds like the Native Americans weren't farming the land to exhaustion then moving on and repeating the process elsewhere. They were just burning an area and letting it return "naturally" (yes I know that sounds weird). I imagine that it was also not performed on quite the same scale as it is in recent times in, say, the Amazon.
Slash and burn is a method of stripping the established vegetation in an area and replacing it with monocrops or grazing animals. Indigenous cultures tended to burn forests and then allow them to regrow, with the aim of promoting the growth of endemic plant species for a variety of benefits.
Modern slash and burn strips the land of nutrients and biodiversity.
Modern slash and burn strips the land of nutrients and biodiversity.
Thanks for bringing up this book. Everyone who lives in California and thinks about nature needs to check out Tending the Wild.
Which one? The book? The short film? Something else?
Presumably the book I linked to in the original post: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520280434/tending-the-wild
aphroz(1)
On a hike we found dozens of ripe blueberry bushes at the trailhead and along a fire road to the trail propper, so were expecting lots more for the rest of the hike. But the berries stopped when the trail started. Turns out they love the roadside disturbed ground but don't do so well among established plants.
That's admirably anti-fragile, but comes with the downside of being fragile to peaceful domesticity. But it makes for a good pioneer or colonist.
That's admirably anti-fragile, but comes with the downside of being fragile to peaceful domesticity. But it makes for a good pioneer or colonist.
“I do a lot of things by choice that people don’t do anymore, and I’m only finding more and more reasons to keep doing them.”
“I do it for the human culture as well as for the agriculture”
A beautiful sentiment that the world would be much better off if more food producers shared.
A beautiful sentiment that the world would be much better off if more food producers shared.
We had raspberries planted in a good spot of ground and they completely failed and we sent back to the nursery letting them know and they sent us new starts.
Before we put in the replacement raspberry starts, we had a bonfire. The new ones took on the charred land and proceeded to take over the place and produce a nice harvest for several years.
Before we put in the replacement raspberry starts, we had a bonfire. The new ones took on the charred land and proceeded to take over the place and produce a nice harvest for several years.
The previous owner of my house planted a few blueberry bushes (not the lowbush wild ones of Maine that should be burned/pruned after every year of fruiting). I’ve always thought of blueberries as inferior to strawberries and raspberries, but now I wonder why so few people have blueberry bushes! Picked ripe and eaten fresh, they’re delicious. A little care when planting, mulch and peat moss in the spring, regular watering, and you’ve got blueberries to enjoy every morning for a couple weeks in summer.
And, as an added bonus, once they get established and mature for a few years, three or five bushes produce an incredible amount of blueberries. At least here in Western WA state.
Carefully frozen, there's many a blueberry pie, scone and pancake all winter long.
Carefully frozen, there's many a blueberry pie, scone and pancake all winter long.
I live in a country where a major source of pollution is farmers burning shit, so I’m having trouble getting with fetishising this as some kind of pastoral bliss.
Yeah. Every year or two we get deluged by “haze” fro
Indonesian farmers mass-burning their fields in preparation for planting palm oil trees. It sucks. Days or weeks of foul air, stink, and blight. Can’t imagine Californians tolerating that.
I grew up nearby in Washington, Maine, and we burned our fields using this method. It was always fun seeing the firemen in their hazmat-like suits; very Cormac McCarthy-esque.
Interesting - I live in Oregon where we grow tons of blueberries but not the wild kind. I always wondered how they are different, apparently mostly grow in the Northeast US and Canada.
I dream of wild blueberries and refer to the cultivated kind (even the “cultivated wild” kind available frozen) as 3D printed blue spheres.
They don’t travel well, so you’re unlikely to find them fresh outside of Ontario, Quebec. You need Boreal forest for good ones imo.
I don’t understand why they’re hard to find in Toronto when you can find a roadside stand a few hours north that has them, often trucked from more hours north.
Lots grow well around Sudbury because the nickel smelting plant’s acid rain made it even better for acid-soil-loving blueberries.
Similar with Lac St Jean region in Quebec that had a massive fire.
They don’t travel well, so you’re unlikely to find them fresh outside of Ontario, Quebec. You need Boreal forest for good ones imo.
I don’t understand why they’re hard to find in Toronto when you can find a roadside stand a few hours north that has them, often trucked from more hours north.
Lots grow well around Sudbury because the nickel smelting plant’s acid rain made it even better for acid-soil-loving blueberries.
Similar with Lac St Jean region in Quebec that had a massive fire.
> They don’t travel well, so you’re unlikely to find them fresh outside of Ontario, Quebec.
They grow in massive quantities in BC. They are a major food source for black bears and their frequently-encountered shit is packed with seeds from the berries.
They grow in massive quantities in BC. They are a major food source for black bears and their frequently-encountered shit is packed with seeds from the berries.
I find them a lot here when I go to mountain biking resorts with my family. I don’t do the biking, so I take my toddler hiking instead. Mount Washington on Vancouver Island is a great spot for berries. Even the trails heading up the hill directly from the resort are absolutely loaded with blueberries and black huckleberries. Whistler has heaps of good berry trails too.
I think it’s because so much of the earth has been dug up and disturbed for the resorts and trails, and the plants are such effective pioneer species.
I think it’s because so much of the earth has been dug up and disturbed for the resorts and trails, and the plants are such effective pioneer species.
Never saw the goods for sale, but my travels were restricted to Vancouver<-> Pemberton. Maybe I was always in the wrong season, but I'm used to seeing random stands on the side of the road when there's availability.
> I dream of wild blueberries and refer to the cultivated kind (even the “cultivated wild” kind available frozen) as 3D printed blue spheres.
I was confused by the use of “wild” blueberries in the article. Clearly they’re being cultivated - in what sense are they wild?
I was confused by the use of “wild” blueberries in the article. Clearly they’re being cultivated - in what sense are they wild?
Having experienced both ... in Oregon we grow blueberries like fruit on trees, you may need to stand on step stool to reach up to grab a hand-full (3) and they seem to be available for much of the summer. In Maine they were more like a lawn of scrub grass and you will wish you had a step stool to sit on when you back gets sore from bending over to pick the dozens of berries that go into a hand-full. (we used "blueberry rakes" [1]), and the season seemed only a short few weeks.
I have heard talk of differences in flavor, but the best is always whichever is in my mouth.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blueberry+rakes&t=lm&iar=images&ia...
I have heard talk of differences in flavor, but the best is always whichever is in my mouth.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blueberry+rakes&t=lm&iar=images&ia...
They are generally vastly more nutrient dense than the non-wild variants.
I grew up in Maine. The blueberry field a half mile down the road from my house was burned periodically—probably yearly but I was young so I don’t remember.
I posted that then read more comments. This post is Mainer-heavy. Nice!
tl;dr: Native Americans would burn the Maine grassland to stimulate blueberry production. Most of the plant is below the surface as rhizomes, and cutting or burning the above-ground part of the plant will stimulate the plant and boost harvests. Burning is preferable to cutting because it also kills funguses and insects.
The article follows one grower. For more info I found the UMaine extension program document useful: https://extension.umaine.edu/blueberries/factsheets/producti...
The article follows one grower. For more info I found the UMaine extension program document useful: https://extension.umaine.edu/blueberries/factsheets/producti...
I live in Maine and grew up here.
Field across the road used to be a blueberry field, and one of Wyman's huge freezer facilities is a few miles down the road, along a now discontinued rail line.
Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
That said, I don't think they've actually stopped burning blueberry fields, every so often I hear someone talk about it. It doesn't seem to be a lost art, just a lesser practiced ones. The kind of wild blueberries we have up here (not those fat ugly tasteless ones other states grow) seem to require it from time to time.
Field across the road used to be a blueberry field, and one of Wyman's huge freezer facilities is a few miles down the road, along a now discontinued rail line.
Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
That said, I don't think they've actually stopped burning blueberry fields, every so often I hear someone talk about it. It doesn't seem to be a lost art, just a lesser practiced ones. The kind of wild blueberries we have up here (not those fat ugly tasteless ones other states grow) seem to require it from time to time.
> Field across the road used to be a blueberry field, and one of Wyman's huge freezer facilities is a few miles down the road, along a now discontinued rail line.
> Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
I think I know exactly the town you're talking about.
During my time Downeast I was told I should cut down the wild berry bushes we had growing all around our driveway every autumn. Hell with that, said I. Next year, with no berries, I figured they might have a point.
> Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
I think I know exactly the town you're talking about.
During my time Downeast I was told I should cut down the wild berry bushes we had growing all around our driveway every autumn. Hell with that, said I. Next year, with no berries, I figured they might have a point.
I grew up in Downeast Maine. This is a very common and well known practice there. I agree with you: this doesn't seem lost at all.
Burning is preferable to cutting because it also kills funguses and insects.
So what's interesting is that article says that many (most? all?) other bluberry growers also burn, but they spray oil which burns very hot. This includes modern Native American tribes. The grower featured in the article burns straw, which is the traditional way of doing it.
So what's interesting is that article says that many (most? all?) other bluberry growers also burn, but they spray oil which burns very hot. This includes modern Native American tribes. The grower featured in the article burns straw, which is the traditional way of doing it.
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Coming from a family of farmers from both my father and my mother sides I remember my father mentioning this technique to me as I was a kid and we were seeing a "wild" fire in the distance (Beauce/Sologne region in France).
He would say farmers would do it and pretend it was accidental, out of any legal context. I don't know if the practice is fully forbidden or just very restricted. But it's probably well known.
He would say farmers would do it and pretend it was accidental, out of any legal context. I don't know if the practice is fully forbidden or just very restricted. But it's probably well known.
Are these the small, tasty blueberries, or the giant not-so-tasty (but instagram friendly) blueberries (referred to as "american blueberries" in Europe)?
These are the small, tasty ones.
So when the global south burns fields to grow crops, it's slash and burn, but when they do it in the US it's a lost art.
Isn't this a way too invasive way to increase crops? Think how many plants, insects, and small animals suffer from this practice. In any way doing sth traditional is not an excuse for a disregard to natural environment.
Many of the environments in question are naturally prone to wildfires from lightening strikes, and the ecosystem is dependent on it. For example, some pines develop fire hardy seeds, that require high temperatures to germinate. The Native American practice of burning was at a relatively sustainable level.
"But he didn’t set out to become a _torchbearer_ for a historic agricultural practice; in fact, he never intended to become a blueberry farmer in the first place."
Good one.
Good one.
I assume this is the same as using Terra preta, which can be produced in a sustainable way and stores carbon dioxide.
Slash and burn agriculture. Wait, weren't there problems with this?
Ironic given how much flak farmers in 3rd get for any kind of fire use
Don't forget flame rye, or "flammenroggen".
Is this carbon-friendly, or is there a more modern way to accomplish the same goals?
I would imagine it is fairly carbon neutral... you are burning things that grew over the last year. You aren't releasing new carbon into the air.
This isn't quite right. Technically it's carbon neutral, but the alternative method is carbon negative, as a larger portion of decaying matter will sequester carbon into the soil than would if you didn't burn. So the reality is that this is not carbon neutral compared to the alternative.
Of course, there could be some hidden factor I'm missing, as biological systems are complex.
Of course, there could be some hidden factor I'm missing, as biological systems are complex.
biochar is actually considered a carbon sink, because the carbon is not readily released, unlike organic carbon.
So burning forests or seasonal burning like in Indonesia is carbon neutral from that perspective?
Seasonal burning probably is carbon neutral.
Burning forests, not so much (at least by standard definitions of carbon neutral). 'Carbon neutral' requires a reference frame; we usually mean from the perspective of the people doing the carbon releasing. If you burn a forest that you planted, you are carbon neutral. If you burn a forest that has been there for centuries, you are not carbon neutral.
Burning forests, not so much (at least by standard definitions of carbon neutral). 'Carbon neutral' requires a reference frame; we usually mean from the perspective of the people doing the carbon releasing. If you burn a forest that you planted, you are carbon neutral. If you burn a forest that has been there for centuries, you are not carbon neutral.
My mother has several blueberry bushes in pots, she mixes coffee grounds in the soil to get the acidity needed to have them grow again. However, I'll propose burning, just to see the reaction on her face.
Can't edit, but I informed her and there is a potted bush that is underperforming this year and so she's open to trying the burn method to see if it helps.
the more modern and hip way is to use not-a-flamethrower
From what I remember from reading, burning
- increased growth of grasses in spring to feed native grazers
- encouraged fresh shoots from plants to grow long and straight which made them useful for basket material and arrows
- kept meadows open and barren of trees which encouraged grazing and made hunting easier
- captured and cooked insects such as grasshoppers for food
As California has suffered so much recently from wild fires, we're learning how seasonal burning was also import for preventing catastrophic fires.
Places like Yosemite were described by early white settlers as resembling a park, with large, spaced trees and grass beneath. You could see from one end of the valley floor to the other. With modern fire suppression, this is impossible, and many of the once vast meadows are now filling with encroaching pines.
This barely scratches the surface of how fire was used to manage land resources by California Indians. I highly recommend this book if you're interested in Native American practices, California history, land management, and native plants.