Whitesbog website
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I notice the top of the page says "Birthplace of the Highbush Blueberry" I do believe highbush blueberry was a wild native plant long before Whitesbog existed.Do the3y mean the cultivated version of this plant?I know cultivated blueberries are bigger but otherwise it is the same plant whereas we have never been able to improve on the cranberry.
What do you mean we've not been able to improve on the cranberry?
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/when_it_comes_to_scientific.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/when_it_comes_to_scientific.html
Well I stand corrected! I had read quite some time ago that we had never been able to improve the cranberry.Either this was in error or beings it was quite some time ago the improvements are more recent.Can they make the berries bigger as they have with blueberries or just more berries per vine as they stated in the article or was that more vines per square foot?It said greater yield so it would be one or the other or both but they didn't mention bigger berries.
So it looks like some varieties (like the Mullica Queen) are more berries per vine.
The other two varieties of Rutgers berries (here and here) just talk about "improved yield" and "large fruit size." They may not want to make statements saying that the berries would be bigger since it seems like that would depend on local conditions which they wouldn't be able to control.
The other two varieties of Rutgers berries (here and here) just talk about "improved yield" and "large fruit size." They may not want to make statements saying that the berries would be bigger since it seems like that would depend on local conditions which they wouldn't be able to control.
Manumuskin,
You are absolutely correct. The Whitesbog website post needs to be corrected to read "Bithplace of the Cultivated Highbush Blueberry." On the other hand, Ben has already begun to clarify your misconceptions about the cultivated cranberry. As a member of the American Cranberry Growers' Association and an unofficial historian of that organization, I have witnessed over forty some years some remarkable achievements in crossing hundreds of cranberry varieties that has resulted in astonishing increases in berry size and yield per acre. I was introduced to the study of cranberry varieties by my friend the late Dr. Phil Marucci, head of Rutgers' cranberry/blueberry field station near Oswego Lake. Back in the early 1980s, he asked me to assist him in setting up the cranberry varieties display during the Annual Chatsworth Cranberry Festival, featuring growers' entries for the "Largest Cranberry Contest." Nickle-sized berries were not uncommon. Occasionally we would see a berry about the size of a quarter. The dry harvested, super market berries seen by the public are quite small in contrast. These often are the "Early Black" variety which ripens early and has a uniform dark red color. The other varieties of larger berries hit the juice and sauce markets and are not genrally seen by the public, with the exception of those of you that witness a cranbeery water harvest.
Lost Town Hunter
You are absolutely correct. The Whitesbog website post needs to be corrected to read "Bithplace of the Cultivated Highbush Blueberry." On the other hand, Ben has already begun to clarify your misconceptions about the cultivated cranberry. As a member of the American Cranberry Growers' Association and an unofficial historian of that organization, I have witnessed over forty some years some remarkable achievements in crossing hundreds of cranberry varieties that has resulted in astonishing increases in berry size and yield per acre. I was introduced to the study of cranberry varieties by my friend the late Dr. Phil Marucci, head of Rutgers' cranberry/blueberry field station near Oswego Lake. Back in the early 1980s, he asked me to assist him in setting up the cranberry varieties display during the Annual Chatsworth Cranberry Festival, featuring growers' entries for the "Largest Cranberry Contest." Nickle-sized berries were not uncommon. Occasionally we would see a berry about the size of a quarter. The dry harvested, super market berries seen by the public are quite small in contrast. These often are the "Early Black" variety which ripens early and has a uniform dark red color. The other varieties of larger berries hit the juice and sauce markets and are not genrally seen by the public, with the exception of those of you that witness a cranbeery water harvest.
Lost Town Hunter
My actual experience with raw berries is limited to wild ones and the ones I occasionally pass in working bogs.They bot seemed about the same size to me but I never have went to an actual harvest and compared berries.Whipoorbill and I have a contest most falls,we get a ripe berry and see if we are man enough to bite into the berry without making a sourpuss face.This took us years to perfect but now we can both play the man quite well with only an occasional tear streaming down our face to mar our expression and we pass this off to the wind or some other invention.
Manumuskin,
Unlike you and your buddy, I've cultivated a taste, perhaps even a graving, for raw, sour cranberries. While walking the dikes during harvest season, I routinely scoop a handful of berries afloat on the bogs and pop them into my mouth to devour them one after the other. I've learned that not all varieties have the same degree of sourness.
Lost Town Hunter
Unlike you and your buddy, I've cultivated a taste, perhaps even a graving, for raw, sour cranberries. While walking the dikes during harvest season, I routinely scoop a handful of berries afloat on the bogs and pop them into my mouth to devour them one after the other. I've learned that not all varieties have the same degree of sourness.
Lost Town Hunter
A man among men! I don't think I could preserve my man face with a whole mouthful of em
Just think, Manumuskin, some people down hot peppers without the slightest wince. Nothing could tempt me to put one of those near my palate.
I started popping one in my mouth now and then after the Cloverdale Farm aquisition. Now I love them raw. I guess it's an aquired taste and tolerance, much like the vodka my father used to down as I would lemmonade 
.
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I cannot abide hot stuff,especially chili peppers.Can't says as I like vodka or not since I never had it but I do love lemonade which my wife hates.She don't like hot or sour.She loves everything blueberry except the berries raw,too sour for her. I'll scarf blueberries by the quart and cranberry sauce by the quart but the raw ones I eat sparingly.Now teaberry I love! We have any teaberry lovers out there?
German, it's definitely an aquired taste but one that will become adictive. I warn you, every time you walk the dykes during a harvest, you will now find yourself unable to resist popping those sour berries into your mouth. Manumuskin, I've tried teaberries a few times. Nice, but too bland and too tame for a "pakimizzen" (cranberry eater) like me. Cheers
pakimizzen? Now thats a new one on me.I'm a pakimizzen sauce eater.I'm going to have to man up and start eating berries by the handful now or my status will be demoted from Piney to Flatwoods Hillbilly