Nova Scotia Blueberries

[RogerDoger]

Here's a report from the Mercman. I take everything (ahem) 'Doctor' Mercola says with a grain of salt because he's always trying to separate me from my money.

Nova Scotia is a big producer of wild blueberries, but watch out, if they aren't organic they may have lots of crap in them.


http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/04/blueberries-counteract-intestinal-diseases.aspx

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208145055.htm

Catching the Toxic Drift: How Pesticides Used in the Blueberry Industry Threaten Our Communities, Our Water and the Environment

http://www.environmentmaine.org/reports/environmental-health/reduce-pesticide-exposure-reports/catching-the-toxic-drift-how-pesticides-used-in-the-blueberry-industry-threaten-our-communities-our-water-and-the-environment

 

[Crohn's 35]

Blue berries are so good for you!! Loads of antioxidants and all. BUT..the skins are hard to digest and I get the D large.... I havent had blueberries in dogs ages. We have Saskatoon berries here, they tastes a bit different and grow wild here but the same, I dont eat them. We also grow our own everybearing strawberries and the bears help produce the raspberry bushes .

 

[D Bergy]

I see I double posted the Blueberry research in another thread.

Oh well, it is kind of a risk free treatment, the kind I like.

Dan

 

[RogerDoger]

I know somebody who works at a blueberry operation.
He said the owners of the farm wouldn't touch a non-organic blueberry,
considering all the crap they spray on them. Scary stuff.

 

[kenny]

Depends on what scares you. Having worked in agriculture and trained at one of the provincial research institutes (run by the University of Guelph these days) I hold a Valid Land class Extermination license through the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy. Some of the products used have higher risks associated with the carrying agents than with the actual Active ingredient. Talc powder for instance is used as a carrying agent for water soluble powders. The talk powder actually has a reactivity warning because the fine powder can cause great harm to your lungs. Silica in fertilizer carries a warning for a similar reason. So does Agricultural lime.

What really annoyed me with the Ag/hort industry is how pest control products where being used in excess to enhance productivity and mechanization. It actually put a lot of people out of work when the fields got a lot bigger and it was easier to just spray the whole darn works than to use Integrated Pest Management practices (IPM) It was too expensive to use trap crops and Biologic/organic pest control products (PCP's)reserving chemical control for when you had to save a crop if other methods failed. There is not enough profit in the food industry to do that at the individual farm or field stage.

Unfortunately I am more uncomfortable with commercially handled organic products than many people are with non organic produce. The risk of serious illness by biologic organisms is very real with those products. Even small scale you have to really trust the people involved with organic crops. A good example of this that means something to people in Ontario is the Walkerton Tragedy. Where the pest control agents were not being put into the water supply with enough regularity and quite a few people in town got sick from the naturally occurring biologic organisms found in water.

It's easy to deify the natural world until it shows you that you are still a part of the food chain yourself


edit: here is some info on Talc just so you dont think I'm nuts. http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/cosmetics/talc.htm

 

[kenny]

BTW it's a real shame that the blueberry research I helped with in my final year of Horticultural sciences got plowed under a few years ago. UOG felt is was not worth the funding here in Ontario. I had a great time driving around the Canadian shield collecting cuttings from "Seemingly" genetic superior plants and taste testing the berries! Then we rooted them in a misting bed and transplanted them into rows along side the Pine and Hazel nut research. All gone now along with a good deal of Mr. Macintosh's trees from way way back.

 

[RogerDoger]

I use a wash with fruits and vegetables; hopefully most of the bad stuff goes down the drain.

I want to plant some elderberry, back currant, maybe Saskatoons too, this year.
The land is damp in the early spring but dries out by late spring. I read that elderberry and black currant can tolerate moist soil. I wonder about Saskatoons?

Talcum powder?! Geez, I give up. Friggin' life causes cancer.

 

[Kev]

I caught a bit (unfortunately not the entire show, and it was TV, so how much faith can one put into it) of a Canadian news-magazine TV show (think it was CBC) that essentially stated after testing nutrient levels AND toxin levels in organically and non organically grown produce, there was no significant differences found. (or was it substantive?).. Anyway, I could understand the nutrient levels being equitable, but the toxins? Apparently, unless grown in a bubble, pretty much everything that is common to the environment makes its way into the food chain... Anyone looked at the levels of mercury in wild tuna? You can't get more organic than that.. it'a not like anyone is farming them. Doesn't matter if its the bottom of the ocean (tuna being deep, cold water fish), the high artic, or the conscientious organic farm down the lane; our air, water and soil are contaminated, and we are at the top of the food chain.

 

[Crohn's 35]

I use a wash with fruits and vegetables; hopefully most of the bad stuff goes down the drain.

I want to plant some elderberry, back currant, maybe Saskatoons too, this year.
The land is damp in the early spring but dries out by late spring. I read that elderberry and black currant can tolerate moist soil. I wonder about Saskatoons?

Talcum powder?! Geez, I give up. Friggin' life causes cancer.

I have Saskatoons growing like mad... the love the sun, and very heat tolerant. The seem to do well in acidic soil, the best one is next to a Spruce tree.

 

[kenny]

I have Saskatoons growing like mad... the love the sun, and very heat tolerant. The seem to do well in acidic soil, the best one is next to a Spruce tree.

I am on a great big huge chunk of limestone so blueberries are pretty much out unless I keep dumping bags of sulfur around them

Do you have to fight the squirrels and birds for berries? I guess way up there you have plenty of black black bears too? :arghmatey_ani:

 

[Crohn's 35]

Yes we have black bears, seen a great big mother of a bear... just sauntering in front of the house. LOL

As for the squirrels and other critters, the Saskatoons are close to our 4 wheeler trails and we run our dogs 3 times a day, so we eliminate them from stealing them. However, we have 5 or 6 apple trees and the bears love those, and you know when they are around because you aint seen poop until you see bear poop:eek2:. We have strawberries but the squirrels get those.

Do you have acerage on your property?

 

[kenny]

I only have about 1.5 ac and am surrounded by cows on three sides. No bears but plenty of squirrels and birds.

I live on the flat lands just to the East of the Frontenac Axis and there are blueberry pie shacks all along the Trans Canada highway in that section. The berries in those pies are mostly wild picked and fertilized with good old bear poop

http://www.natureconservancy.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=on_ncc_work_projects_frontenacarch1