Manor, GA |
Georgia’s blueberry growers are having a season worth celebrating. Both the quantity and quality of this year’s harvest have exceeded expectations — and surprisingly, the historically dry conditions that have plagued much of the state’s agriculture this year deserve much of the credit.
“This year’s berries look really good. Honestly, this is some of the best quality we’ve had in years,” said Alex Cornelius of Cornelius Farms. “Mother Nature has been good to us. It’s been a drought, and during a drought, the quality is always better. When it’s wet — particularly in South Georgia where it’s humid — fungus, disease pressure, pest pressure, everything is just worse. And blueberries, if you get too much rain, they’ll split and cause problems.”
Growers also caught a break on the weather front when a damaging February freeze that hit Florida farms hard largely spared operations further north in Georgia.
“The February first freeze hit Florida so hard, and it did affect some farms with early varieties that were sticking out pretty bad,” Cornelius said. “But we were blessed that it did not affect our farm. The later freeze that came along was minimal.”
The timing of this bumper crop couldn’t be better. Many growers in the region are still working to recover financially from the devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene — and for Cornelius Farms, that recovery has been a years-long process.
“Helene took out a hundred and twenty acres of our production. We first planted those plants, and then in 2022 they got wiped out with Helene and we went back and replanted them again,” Cornelius said. “So we’re four or five years into no return on that hundred and twenty acres. That’s been pretty devastating to us and all the farmers in this area.”
The stakes are high for this part of the state, which dedicates more than eighteen hundred acres to blueberry production this season alone. For operations like Cornelius Farms — which has been growing blueberries for more than thirty-five years — keeping the entire process in house has proven to be a key competitive advantage.
“When you have your own packing facility, if the quality is poor, you can focus on it more. You can respond to what the market needs — different sized packs, different deadlines. It’s a constant change,” Cornelius said. “But when you have your own facility, you can react.”
That adaptability is increasingly important as consumer demand for blueberries continues to rise, driven by a decade of positive press around the fruit’s health benefits.
“The positive health benefits have really grown our business,” Cornelius said. “We continue planting new varieties and new breeder programs everywhere to improve what we put in the ground — to make a better berry, better taste, and a better result for the consumer.”
For Georgia’s blueberry growers, this season offers more than just a strong harvest. It’s a much-needed sign that after years of setbacks, the industry is resilient and moving forward.